Belts, Gloves & the Little Details

Nobody has ever been complimented on their belt. Plenty of people have been quietly noticed for a bad one. That's the nature of accessories — they can't make an outfit, but they can undo one.

The belt

Match it to your shoes. Not exactly, but in family — brown with brown, black with black, and a white belt only with white shoes. This is the oldest rule in the book and it still catches people out.

Width should be about 3.5cm. Wider looks like workwear, narrower looks like formalwear.

Length: the tail should finish somewhere between the first and second belt loop after the buckle. Anything longer flaps in your swing; anything shorter looks like it barely fits.

Golf-specific stretch-weave belts are genuinely better than leather for playing in — they move with you when you turn and don't dig in when you bend. A woven belt in a neutral colour goes with everything and costs less than a sleeve of premium balls.

Gloves, and where people go wrong

Too big is the universal mistake. A golf glove should feel slightly tight when new — snug across the palm, no loose fabric at the fingertips, no bunching in the middle of your palm. Leather stretches. A glove that's comfortable in the shop will be loose in three rounds, and a loose glove means you grip harder to compensate, which is the opposite of what a glove is for.

Cabretta leather is the premium standard — best feel, best grip, wears fastest and hates moisture. Synthetic lasts considerably longer, handles wet far better and costs less, at some cost in feel. Hybrids put leather on the palm and synthetic on the back, which is a sensible compromise most people should consider.

Rotate two or three gloves. A glove worn every round and left balled up in your bag will die in weeks. Three gloves rotated and dried flat will outlast six worn one at a time — the leather needs to dry out between rounds and recover its shape.

The details worth getting right

Socks. Either no-show or proper crew — the mid-length trouser-sock look is the one that reads badly. Merino or technical, never cotton.

Sunglasses. Polarised lenses cut glare off water and wet grass, though a few players find they distort depth perception when reading greens. Try before committing. And a retainer strap, unless you enjoy buying sunglasses.

Ball marker. A proper one, not a dime. It's the small object you handle most on a golf course and it costs almost nothing to have a good one.

Towel. A waffle-weave one actually cleans a clubface; a flat terry one just moves mud around. And carry two, one dry.

Why it's worth bothering

None of this is expensive and none of it will be remarked upon. That's rather the point — the details are what separate looking put together from looking like you got dressed in the car park, and nobody can ever quite say which bit did it.