The Loop

For Father's Day: How about a $135 golf glove?

June 05, 2016

I hate Father's Day, for reasons I won't enumerate. (If you're curious, go here.) So it makes sense to me that people who insist on celebrating it should have to pay up. That's just one reason you might want to start dropping hints that the one gift you're really interested in this year is a $135 golf glove:

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Mine was given to me not by my children -- who know they aren't allowed even to mention Father's Day -- but by Pat Morrell, the founder of FitzGerald Morrell, a company sells custom-made leather gloves for a variety of activities, among them golf. "Just ask yourself how many golf gloves you’ve had to buy at the pro shop because your old pseudo-leather glove tore in the thumb or became brittle and flaky in the palm or in between your fingers," he has explained. "You can buy custom clubs, custom balls, custom shirts, pants and shoes… but you can’t buy custom golf gloves. Until now." Here's Morrell himself, wearing some of his (non-golf) products:

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Morrell sent me a sizing kit, including a hand diagram, a measuring tape, and a pencil:

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After I'd traced my hand, kindergarten-style, I used an enclosed postage-paid envelop to send everything off to a shop in England -- which looks pretty much exactly the way you'd guess it would:

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There, various craftsmen used various old-looking tools to create a glove to my precise specifications:

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They also added the monogram of the Sunday Morning Group, recognized the world over as a symbol of quality and trust. I've now used my $135 golf glove exclusively for a couple of months (except when it was raining), including a dozen rounds on a recent golf trip to Ireland:

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Gradually, it has acquired a fine patina, like a beloved fielder's mitt. It has also fully conformed to my anatomy -- so much so that, if I ever lose my left hand in an industrial accident, the glove could serve as a mold for a replacement:

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I've identified just a few drawbacks. One is that, if you want to be sure all your friends understand that you are wearing a $135 golf glove, you have to refer to it as "my $135 golf glove." Another is that the leather is so substantial that the glove is not pleasant to wear when the temperature and relative humidity are high. A third is that, if you are accustomed to losing your golf glove two or three times a round, you have to constantly watch your back:

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I've taken to wearing it while I'm putting -- like Nicklaus -- to reduce my opportunities for losing it, and so far, with occasional help from friends, I've been successful. I've also been able to tidy up the trunk of my car. It used to look like this:

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It now looks like this:

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Why, it paid for itself right there.