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High Fashion

Extremely nice guy Charles Howell III took an all-time ricochet shot at a fellow tour pro's style

February 09, 2022
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Al Messerschmidt

This week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Charles Howell III will make his 600th career PGA Tour start, becoming the 69th player to accomplish the remarkable feat. More impressively, at 42, Howell is the third youngest to reach the 600-start milestone, and he's showing no signs of slowing down from there.

Howell turned professional in 2000, meaning he's now been doing this whole PGA Tour thing for more than two decades. Once the young gun, Howell is now the seasoned veteran, and many of the guys that took him under their wing have either moved on to the PGA Tour Champions or have faded from the picture entirely, highlighting Howell's longevity.

One guy Howell pal'd around with quite a bit was Jesper Parnevik, who is now 56 and a member on the senior tour. On Wednesday at TPC Scottsdale, while reminiscing about his early days on tour, Howell got in a nice little ricochet shot at his old buddy.

"[When I first came out on tour] I played practice rounds with Corey Pavin, I played practice rounds with Jeff Sluman," Howell said. "These guys, I picked their brain a lot. Hey, how do you do this? What do you do here?

"Jesper Parnevik was another player I spent a whole lot of time with. He influenced my fashion sadly for a couple years, but we all make mistakes."

Unfortunately, the picture at the very top of this post is the only we could find of the two on the course together, though it certainly proves what Howell is saying here. He took a few fashion cues from the Swede, though thankfully he didn't copy the reverse flat brim. Only Parnevik can pull that off, anyway (he still does to this day):

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Steve Dykes

As for Howell, his style has become decidedly more conservative, not surprisingly for Georgia native in his early 40s. That said, that mock neck shirt Howell used to rock has been brought back by Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka, which is another hilarious way of highlighting just how long Howell has been on tour. He's been around for the birth, death and resurrection of the mock neck, a feat that might be more impressive than 600 starts.