This week, the eyes of the sporting world turn to a stretch of dune-backed links on the Merseyside coast. From 12 to 19 July, Royal Birkdale hosts the 154th Open Championship, with four days of championship play beginning on Thursday 16 July and the Champion Golfer of the Year crowned on Sunday afternoon. It is the oldest major in golf, played on English soil, in high summer: as British sporting occasions go, they do not come much grander. And while every player in the field will be dressed by a technical sponsor, the spectator, the club member and the man watching from the nineteenth hole at home are bound by no such contract. This is the week to wear golf, not just watch it.
Why Birkdale Is a Style Occasion, Not Just a Sporting One
The Open has always carried a particular sartorial charge. This is the championship of Henry Cotton's tailored elegance and Doug Sanders' famously flamboyant wardrobe, a tournament where wind, rain and glory arrive in the same afternoon. Royal Birkdale itself, an Art Deco clubhouse rising out of the Southport dunes like an ocean liner, is one of the most photogenic settings in golf. Crowds at The Open dress differently from crowds at other majors: more knitwear, more tailoring, more character. The atmosphere sits somewhere between a garden party and a pilgrimage, and it rewards the man who has thought about what he is wearing.
At Claudio Lugli, we have long believed that the best conversation pieces in menswear are prints with a story. A golf print worn during Open week is not fancy dress; it is a knowing nod, the menswear equivalent of a well-timed round of applause from behind the ropes.
The Statement Play: The Stripe Golfer
If you are choosing one shirt for the week, make it the Stripe Golfer Print Shirt. It takes the mid-century golfer, mid-swing, and sets him against a bold stripe: part vintage clubhouse poster, part modern statement shirt. Cut in our signature satin-finish cotton, it has the sheen and drape that separates a premium print from a novelty one.
Wear it the way we always recommend wearing a bold print: let the shirt do the talking and keep everything else quiet. A navy unstructured blazer, stone chinos or tailored shorts, and suede loafers will carry you from the grandstand at the eighteenth to dinner in Southport without a change of clothes. For the full method, our guide to styling a bold print under a classic neutral blazer covers the principle in detail.
Course-Side: Short Sleeves for the Dunes
Links golf is watched on foot. Birkdale's spectators will cover miles of sandhills in a day, and mid-July on the Lancashire coast can serve sunshine and sea breeze in the same hour. This is short-sleeve territory, and our Sport and Games collection has three golf prints built for exactly this brief.
The Golf Fairway Print Short Sleeve Shirt maps an entire course across the body in greens and creams: fairways, bunkers and flags rendered like an illustrated club scorecard. The Multi Golf Print Short Sleeve Shirt is the louder cousin, a riot of clubs, balls and golfing paraphernalia for the man who wants his allegiance visible from the far side of the fairway. And the Golf Club Short Sleeve Shirt in crisp white is the most restrained of the trio, a clean canvas scattered with golfing motifs that reads smart-casual at twenty paces.
Style any of the three with tailored shorts or lightweight trousers in a colour lifted from the print, white leather trainers, and sunglasses. Add a light cotton knit over the shoulders for when the wind swings round off the Irish Sea. It will.
The Nineteenth Hole and the Sofa
Not everyone will make it to Southport, and Open week is just as much a ritual at the golf club bar and on the sofa, where the early starters tee off with the morning coffee and the final putt drops around dinner. For club lunches, member-guest days and any occasion with a collar requirement, the long-sleeve Golf Swing Print Shirt is the connoisseur's choice, a sequence of swings printed like a coaching manual brought to life. Finish it with the Silk Golfer Neck-Tie if your clubhouse still takes dress codes seriously; worn together, they are a study in committed, confident theming.
A note of caution from the style desk: we make no predictions about who lifts the Claret Jug on Sunday. Links golf humbles forecasters. The only safe bet of the week is that the best-dressed man in the room will be the one whose shirt started the conversation.
Beyond Birkdale: A Summer of Occasions
The Open sits at the heart of a British summer that rolls on to Glorious Goodwood and beyond. If your July and August diary is filling up, our guide to dressing for the English summer season maps the dress codes from racecourse to regatta.
For now, the fairways of Birkdale call. Explore the full Sport and Games collection and find the golf print that gets you through Open week in style. The Claret Jug is decided on the course; the best-dressed spectator is decided long before.
