老虎伍茲展示新高爾夫球衣

來源: The New York Times 編輯: Vicki

本周，老虎伍茲將出帥英國高爾夫公開賽，他得面臨很多不確定因素：球速，草質，風速，斜度甚至包括草地的含水量等。但有一件事一年前就板上釘釘連，那就是他出席本次比賽的著裝。他究竟會穿什么顏色的襯衫，褲子呢？一起來看一下吧

Golfers Have Clothes Laid Out for Them

As Tiger Woods（老虎伍茲） prepares to putt（輕擊） on the 18th green this weekend at the British Open, he will assess many variables: the speed of the green, the grain in the grass, the wind, the slope, even the moisture underfoot.

But there is one thing about Woods at the 138th British Open that has been set in stone for more than a year: the color and design of his shirt, pants and hat.

For Thursday’s first round, his shirt will be navy and striped（帶條文的海軍服）. It will be a bright coral color Friday and white with a stripe Saturday. And Sunday, Woods will wear a new, textured red argyle（多色菱形花紋） shirt with black pants.

Golf is notoriously fickle（易變的）, yet golf apparel manufacturers leave no marketing opportunity to chance. What Woods wears each day at every major championship this year has been scripted for him by his sponsor Nike since last summer. To ensure that retailers have a new design or color modeled by Woods on their shelves this weekend, Nike had its first meetings about Woods’s 2009 British Open wardrobe 17 months ago.

It is the same for almost all the top golfers. No one knows what score Sergio García（加西亞） will shoot during Saturday’s third round at Turnberry in Scotland, but he will undoubtedly wear white pants and a blue shirt with a white piping stripe, according to the clothing script provided to him by his sponsor Adidas Golf. Kenny Perry will wear a navy plaid print shirt and light khaki pants. The reigning United States Open champion, Lucas Glover, will wear a bright yellow Nike shirt with gray pants.

Top athletes in most sports wear uniforms, so orchestrating （精心策劃）their attire（盛裝） to maximize sales is not an option. But in individual sports like golf and tennis, the playing fields of major championships are akin to a fashion week runway, only better. The winner in golf could be on television throughout the world for five consecutive hours. His face and clothes will appear on Web sites and in newspapers, and his winning outfit（全套裝備） could surface again a month or a year later on magazine covers.

“A single shirt worn by one of our athletes on a Sunday afternoon winning a tournament can raise sales 10 percent,” said Tiss Dahan, the senior director of global apparel at Adidas Golf. “We see the influx（大量） online, and our customer service phone line will get the calls from retailers who are reacting to requests from consumers. You get somebody playing well in clothes that look good, it really moves the needle for apparel.”

No trade organization tracks golf apparel sales. Organizations that follow equipment sales estimate that market to be in the $4 billion to $5 billion range, and the apparel marketplace is widely evaluated as comparable, if not bigger. Golf Datatech, a Florida company that conducts research on eight golf product categories, intends to distribute its first retail apparel report this fall.

Clothing manufacturers prepare wardrobes primarily for top-ranked players and only during the four major championships: the British Open, the United States Open, the Masters and the P.G.A. Championship.

The history of this planning dates to the 1980s, though it was not nearly as structured.

“Once upon a time, the pros were just happy to get a box of free clothes,” said Eddie Fadel, the vice president of Ashworth Golf. “But you had no control over how they would wear them or when. Then people started to realize they could involve the entire marketing, production and merchandising chain and make the most of the national exposure.”

An explosive increase in the sponsorship dollars paid to professional golfers no doubt had an effect as well. Woods has been under contract to Nike since 1996, and the company has paid him nearly a quarter billion dollars. His contract is for more than clothing; Woods uses Nike golf clubs and balls. But he wears Nike apparel in most public appearances, including advertising for other sponsors.

The scripting process begins for most companies with a design meeting about a year and a half before an event. New looks in stripes, plaids and prints are examined, as well as the technology of materials, like moisture-wicking fabrics. A color palette is chosen and a decision made on how the basic clothes will work with vests or pullovers.

Woods meets with Nike’s apparel team three to four times a year. In the last of those meetings, he is shown prototype garments for his approval or rejection.

“Tiger won’t wear white pants, for example,” said Doug Reed, Nike’s global director of golf apparel and accessories. “And he won’t wear green pants. One year, we proposed he wear a dark green shirt on a Saturday at the P.G.A. Championship. Tiger took one look at it and said: ‘The P.G.A. is in Oklahoma in August. There’s no way. I’m not wearing a dark shirt in that heat.’ So we took it out of the script.”

Various pros have their own preferences. For a long time, Mike Weir would wear only black shoes. Anthony Kim likes to be daring — on Friday, for example, he is wearing blue plaid pants. Justin Leonard tends to be more conservative — he will wear solid black pants on Friday.

And, of course, no two players should ever arrive at the course in the same outfit. A few years ago at the Masters, there was even consternation on the first tee when Phil Mickelson’s caddie arrived in the same shirt as the golfer Charles Howell III, who was playing in Mickelson’s group.

Mickelson does not have a clothing contract this year, making him one of the few elite golfers to dress himself, which he does with the help of a London tailor.

The companies script clothing for women as well, although Dahan said women’s golf clothing sales represent only 30 percent of Adidas Golf’s apparel business.

The men sometimes accidentally go off the script or decide to wear a lucky hat or shoes from the day before. Then there is rain, which can throw off the best-laid plans.

“We had that at Bethpage,” said Dahan, referring to the soaked site of this year’s United States Open. “But we do script for beyond the base layer. It’s a chance to show our training tops and technical outerwear.”

When it all works as planned, company executives sit back at home and root for their clothes.

“When someone has the lead and you see him on TV walking up to the final green, you can’t help but think back to a year ago when you first showed them that shirt and pants,” Reed said. “It’s a thrill when somebody wins wearing your stuff.”

With some variations, Woods always wears red on Sunday.

“We’ve tried shades of red that are a little more pink or more raspberry,” Reed said. “We go with stripes and patterns. We offer alternatives, and people notice. When Tiger debuts a new red shirt, it sells. Because let’s face it, everyone wants to play golf like Tiger.”

Keke View：老虎伍茲孩童時就表現出了非凡的高爾夫天賦，他3歲時就擊出了9洞48桿的成績，然后5歲時又上了《高爾夫文摘》雜志。他在18歲時成為了最年輕的美國業余比賽冠軍，然后又史無前例的在1994，1995和1996年完成了該賽事的帽子戲法。之后，他在1996年密爾沃基公開賽中轉入職業選手行列，最終獲得第60名。而此后的8次比賽中，他2次奪魁，另外還有3次進入前10名。 我們可以說泰格·伍茲的出現是世界高爾夫歷史上的一個亮點，他帶動了高爾夫事業的發展，使高爾夫在世界范圍內引起了前所未有的關注。