Tag: health

Every time you turn on the television to watch some professional golf, all players seem to have one thing in common: a hat on their head. It seems like every single professional golfer hat is always wearing a hat!

If you noticed just how many professional golfers are wearing hats during tournaments, you may wonder: Why do all professional golfers always wear hats?

In this article, we will explain to you exactly why all professional golfers seem to always be wearing a hat.

Why Do All Professional Golfers Wear Hats?

Professional golfers always seem to be wearing a hat during tournaments because golf brands pay professional golfers large sums for them to wear their branded hat. Golf hats also have major golfing performance and health benefits that make them worth being worn.

Whenever you turn on the television to watch professional golf, or attend a tournament in person, one thing may shock you: all the players seem to be wearing hats, even when it is not really sunny out. Why?

There are many reasons why a player would want to wear a golf hat, especially if it is sunny. There are also reasons to wear a hat in cloudy weather. In the next section below, you can read exactly what these reasons are.

3 Reasons Why All Professional Golfers Wear Hats

Down below, you can read the 3 main reasons why all professional golfers seem to always be wearing a golf hat on.

1. Sponsors & Advertisement Money

One of the main reasons so many professional golfers wear a hat is because it pays to be a pro golfer with a hat on. In fact, golf brands all around the world, like TaylorMade and Nike Golf, pay large sums of many to players to wear a hat with their brand on it.

These golf brands largely benefit from the publicity generated by the masses seeing their logo on the hats of their favorite golfers.

This creates brand loyalty between these companies and the masses, as they want to buy the same gear their favorite professional golfer wears and endorses. A portion of these people then eventually buys gear from a certain brand, which increases that company’s revenue.

For example, Tiger Woods, even though he is no longer really active in golf, is paid 10-20M$ per year by Nike Golf to wear and endorse their gear.

Tiger Woods’ name carries huge weight, as so many young players want to play like and look like him, making them buy Nike when they go buy equipment or apparel.

It is common for the best golfers to make more money from their sponsorships than from their tournament earnings, which is why they always show up with a golf hat on. Would you wear a hat when you play golf to double or maybe 10x your salary? The pros would.

2. Better Golfing Performance

Another important reason why so many golfers always seem to be wearing a golf hat is because a hat improves their golfing performance. If you would like to know the details of a hat’s performance benefits, you can read our article : 9 Reasons To Wear A Hat In Golf.

The golfing performance benefits wearing a golf hat confers you include protection from the sun’s glare in your eyes and from sweat in your eyes. These two elements can easily irritate your eyes and negatively impact your performance and frustration levels.

Furthermore, if you have long hair, wearing a golf hat will hold it, preventing it from wagging around in the wind, or from blocking your view and tickling your face.

In addition, if it is very hot outside, the heat the sun emanates can start to cook your head and your brain, leading to headaches and dizziness, which are no good for great golfing performance. A hat acts as a heat barrier between the sun and your head.

Finally, wearing a golf hat reduces your field of view, thanks to the brim, which helps golfers block out distractions and focus on the shot to play. This distraction-blocking effect is similar to the effect of the eye blinders horses are made to wear.

3. Health Protection

The final major reason why golfers always seem to wear a hat is because a hat provides protection against many health risks.

Although the sun’s rays hitting human skin is great for Vitamin D, there can be too much of a good thing. Excessive prolonged exposure to sunlight can cause face wrinkles, sunburns, as well as skin cancer. For these reasons, wearing a hat in sunny conditions is very valuable.

In addition, especially if you have bright eyes, too much sunlight can damage your eye health. We only have one set of eyes, and they already experience enough strain with all the screens we look at in the 21^st century. To protect your eye health, wearing a golf hat is useful.

After reading this section, you hopefully see how valuable wearing a golf hat can be for someone’s short and long term health. As golfers are outdoors a lot during the season, the value of wearing a golf hat is even larger than for a casual golfer.

Conclusion

There you go! After reading this article, you have learned exactly why all professional golfers seem to always have a hat on. It is definitely not only to protect from sunlight!

Sponsorships aside, do you think everyone should wear a hat when playing golf? Let us know in the comments down below!

If you are new to golf, and you have noticed that many golf players wear hats on the courses, you may wonder if you have to wear a hat in golf.

Maybe you do not like wearing hats, and you are wondering: Is wearing a hat mandatory on golf courses?

In this article, you will learn whether you have to wear a hat in golf or not.

Do You Have to Wear a Hat in Golf?

The short answer is that no, wearing a hat in golf is not mandatory, but it is generally recommended. A hat can protect you from sunburns, skin cancer, sweat in your eyes, distractions, and much more. Therefore, it is generally recommended to wear a hat in golf, especially if it is sunny.

No golf course will ever force you to wear a hat while playing golf, but some might recommend it.

Read further down below in this article to learn why you might want to wear a hat, whether it is to protect your health, or to improve your performance.

9 Reasons to Wear a Hat in Golf

Down below are the 9 reasons why you could or should wear a hat while playing golf, whether it is a baseball-style cap, a winter hat, a tuque, or a visor.

1. Skin Protection (Cancer prevention)

First of all, wearing a hat is always recommended when the sun is out and hitting your skin hard.

There are countless studies that have linked long, direct exposure to sunlight with skin cancer.

Therefore, if you wish to maximize your chances of not getting skin cancer, you should absolutely wear a hat when it is sunny outside.

This is especially true around noon, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, and the rays hit you directly. At noon, the sun’s rays need to travel the least distance to hit you, which is why it is most damaging to your skin at that time.

Furthermore, if you would like to avoid sunburns, you should also wear a hat, because exposure to sunlight for prolonged periods will make your face go redder than a tomato.

2. Glare Reduction

The second reason to wear a hat while playing golf is to reduce the glare you experience in your eyes.

When you play golf, it is important that you are comfortable, and able to see the ball and the course well, or you will be thrown off, and potentially miss your shots.

Just about everything on this planet is less comfortable when you are blinded by the sunlight, and that includes trying to be good at golf.

Therefore, to increase your comfort and save your golf performance, you need to block the sunlight from directly reaching your eyes.

To block the sunlight from reaching your eyes, you can simply wear a hat, whether it is a baseball-style cap, or a visor.

3. No sweat dripping in your eyes

Have you ever had sweat drop in your eyes, followed by an intense stinging pain in them? If you have particularly sensitive eyes, it is possible they became bloodshot, and you could not open your eyes anymore.

Feeling such a sting in your eyes can kill both your pleasure for the current round of golf, as well as your ability to perform.

Your sweat tends to originate from your scalp and hair before dripping down your forehead and into your eyes.

To prevent your sweat from entering your eyes, you need to block its passage. How? Simply wear a hat.

A hat, whether it is a winter hat, a baseball-style cap, or a visor, will hold your hair and sweat at the top of your head.

With a hat on, your sweat will have a much harder time dripping down your forehead and into your eyes. Therefore, if you have a hat on, you can save yourself eye pain, discomfort, and play golf as well as you can!

4. Aesthetic Purposes

A more optional, yet valid reason to wear a hat is for aesthetic purposes or fashion.

In fact, if you can color match your hat with the rest of your golf attire, you can look quite cool or professional.

For example, wearing a black hat with an all black outfit always looks clean, sleek, and professional.

If you like more flashy clothes, there are also options for you, like the colors red or yellow.

Whatever you choose, some people wear hats while playing golf simply for the aesthetic appeal of them, or to look professional, and so can you.

5. Heat Protection or Conservation

The next reason to wear a golf hat is very important: heat protection or conservation.

In the summer or warm weather, the extreme heat will hit your head and make you feel like you are overheating, dehydrated and dizzy.

By wearing a hat, you will be somewhat protected from the sun’s warmth. Without excessive warmth from the sun, you are less likely to get dehydrated, and more dizzy than you need to be.

In the summer, it is recommended to wear a Baseball-Style Cap or a Visor hat.

Callaway Baseball-Style Cap

Callaway Visor Hat

In the winter or cold weather, you will have the opposite problem – a lack of heat conservation. It is easy for us humans to lose heat through our extremities – arms, legs, and head.

Without sufficient heat conservation, you will feel very cold in your head area, and will even experience pain if you are exposed to the cold long enough.

To optimize your heat conservation, you should wear a warm winter hat or tuque.

This type of hat will keep your heat close to your head, keeping the latter as warm as possible in the cold months. With this hat, you will be able to play longer, and without pain.

Winter Hat

6. Eye Health

The next reason to wear a hat is to maintain your eye health.

In fact, direct sunlight into your eyes, particularly if you have a lighter eye color, can damage your eyes, causing severe conditions that can worsen or make you lose your sight.

To limit the amount of sunlight going into your eyes, you should absolutely wear a hat while playing golf.

To increase the safety of your eyes relative to sunlight, you should also wear a good pair of sunglasses that are UV-Blocking.

Your eyes are very precious, and you only have one set of them in your life; take care of them. You will thank yourself when you are old and moving is painful; at least, you will have your eyes to take in the beauty of the world.

7. Less Distractions = More Concentration

Here is a purely performance related reason to wear a hat. Various professional golf players, including Tiger Woods, claim that the curved brim of their hat limits their peripheral vision, which prevents them from seeing distractions.

Without seeing distractions on the sides, such as other players, spectators, and more, you can focus solely on the golf ball and hole ahead of you.

Make sure you choose a hat with a curved brim. If the brim of your hat is straight, it will not really block out your peripheral vision much.

Wear a wide-brimmed hat, and you will be more concentrated & focused on the sunny days that you are playing golf.

8. Holding Your Hair

Another great reason to wear a hat while playing golf is if you have long hair.

If you have long hair, it might very well get in front of your face, and bother you as it lays on your arms and shoulders.

These minor annoyances can distract you and ruin your kinetic chain, especially when you feel the weight of your hair moving around as you try to shoot the golf ball.

To prevent these annoyances, you can stick all of your hair within a baseball-style cap or a winter hat. A visor hat may be able to hold your hair out of your face, but it will be less effective than the former two options.

9. Advertisement Placements

Unless you are a professional golf player, the last reason on this list is probably not applicable.

However, if you are a professional golf player, then you can add the logo of a company or brand sponsoring you on the front, back, and sides of your hat as a paid advertisement!

Any piece of clothing that you add to your outfit can be customized to hold advertisement placements.

In the case of these professional golfers, wearing a hat with advertisement placements is literally making them money. This is definitely not a bad deal, if they are wearing the logo of a brand they trust and believe in!

Conclusion

There you go! After reading this article, you have learned you it is not mandatory to wear a hat in golf, and that golf courses will never force you to wear one.

Additionally, you have learned the 9 reasons why you could or should wear a hat in golf, and that there are both health & performances reasons to do so.

Do you like to wear a hat while out on the golf course? Which type of hat? Let us know in the comments down below!