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The Loop
The Loop

2016 Ryder Cup Style Review

By Alex Holmes

The fashion hits and misses from Hazeltine

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Photo by 2016 Getty Images
U.S. brings back the Cup
After an eight-year Ryder Cup drought, the U.S. team finally bested the Euros on Sunday at Hazeltine National. When the Sunday singles session was over, the team popped enough champagne bottles to make Lill’ Wayne proud and soaked in the long-awaited win.
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Brandt Snedeker, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka/Rory McIlroy, Thomas Pieters
Kudos to both teams on the style front as this was collectively one of the most stylish Ryder Cups we can remember. With a few exceptions, the fit and finish of the team scripts were solid from the practice rounds to the final pressers.
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Davis Love III/Darren Clarke
Style-wise, what impressed us most is how each team had its own specific aesthetic that created a cool level of contrast between the two sides. Led by each team’s stylish skipper, this year’s Ryder Cup pitted the classically clad Euros against the cutting-edge American crew.
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Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose/Rory McIlory
The Euros super-sartorial wardrobe relied on all sorts of different knitwear. From crew necks to cardigans, these boys knocked down one sweet sweater after the next.
David Cannon/Getty Images, Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR/Getty Images
Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson
The U.S. took a decidedly more contemporary approach with different technical layering looks that included muted camo pull-overs and knit/puffer mixed-material outerwear pieces.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Henrik Stenson/Rory McIlroy, Thomas Pieters/Sergio Garcia
The Europeans also kept their unis monochromatic with a focused assortment of solid set-ups in matte grays and steel blues.
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Brandt Snedeker, Brooks Koepka/Rickie Fowler/Jordan Spieth
Credit the Americans for nailing the details with their kits. The balance of bold styling and graphic USA16 accents on sleeves, shirt backs and trouser legs gave these uniforms a very athletic edge.
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images, Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR/Getty Images, David Cannon/Getty Images
Patrick Reed/Jordan Spieth/Dustin Johnson
The U.S. squad also mixed things up with a new red, white and blue rig for each match. From straight-up solids to two-tone color blocks and wide-set rugby stripes, Team USA showed different looks that still maintained a consistent feel for the week. You’d just wish some of these guys took notes for their personal PGA Tour scripts and maintained anything close to this level of coherent style from Thursday through Sunday.
David Cannon/Getty Images, Streeter Lecka/Getty Images, Mike Ehrmann/PGA of America via Getty Images
Jordan Spieth, Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson/Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Chris Wood, Thomas Pieters
Despite their different approaches both sides struck the right chords and kept things consistently stylish from Friday to Sunday.
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Rory McIlroy, Andy Sullivan
Who knew going topless would be one of the Ryder Cup themes. We couldn’t help but notice a significant number of European players chose not to where hats/visors for most of their matches. It makes you wonder whether there was some sort of wardrobe malfunction with the team caps or they just deal with the hats during the regular season out of sponsor obligation yet might prefer to go without them if they had the choice.
Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
Brooks Koepka
Speaking of wardrobe malfunction, we’re not sure who was responsible for quality control on these trousers, but the U.S. team’s white pants came out a little too see through for high-def TV screens. Luckily the team got the memo beforehand, and we didn’t see anyone wearing their lucky red undies. Because we would have if they did.
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Danny Willett/Rory McIlroy
There was an outpouring of support at Hazeltine for the late Arnold Palmer. Members from both teams wore pins of Bay Hill’s iconic umbrella logo as a sign of respect for The King.
Andrew Redington/Getty Images, JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Danny Willett/Rickie Fowler
We’re seeing more ink inside the ropes these days and each team had a guy showing some arm artwork.
Andrew Redington/Getty Images, Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
Tiger Woods
Tiger’s never really nailed the facial-hair formula and this chin-strap beard isn’t really doing it for him, either.
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Rory McIlory/Rickie Fowler/Michael Greller
Fancy footwear continues to be one of the biggest style stories of the season. On or off the course, a strong shoe game can set your uniform apart from the pack.
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First Impressions
Both teams looked pretty good during this year’s opening ceremony even as each side had issues with its hardware. The U.S. should have left its gold-button blazers at the boathouse and gone with dark brown or blue buttons for a more modern look. The Euros nailed their button color, but just had too many of them closed. If you’re going to wear a three-button jacket (totally cool) make sure you only button the middle one.
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Ryder Cup galleries
Every year the Ryder cup galleries continue to up their games! This time was no exception.
Scott Halleran/PGA of America via Getty Images, Keyur Khamar/ PGA TOUR/Getty Images
Bill Murray
Not to mention this year’s crowd had this going for ’em … which was nice.
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