How Golf Fashion Made It to Gen-Z’s For You Page

Ring Concierge has long sold tennis bracelets and necklaces. But this year, it’s creating jewellery for another country club-coded sport: Golf.

In June, the fine jewellery brand announced a collaboration with apparel startup Malbon Golf, selling golf ball-adorned charm bracelets and a golf glove with a cut-out on the ring finger, meant to show off a diamond ring. To celebrate, it co-hosted an event with Malbon at a Connecticut golf course, where invited influencers participated in a golf lesson decked out in Malbon apparel and Ring Concierge accessories. With customers, too, it’s proved to be a hit for both brands: the glove sold out within seven minutes.

“Women want to look fabulous on the course. They don’t want it to look like a stuffy sport,” said Nicole Wegman, Ring Concierge’s founder and chief executive.

While racket sports like tennis and padel have been fashion favourites for partnerships and athlete sponsorships — with brands from Sporty & Rich to Louis Vuitton getting involved — golf has been slower to step up its style game. The sport, admitted Nate Checketts, chief executive of athletic brand Rhone, typically attracts an older crowd and “has not always been very welcoming to women.”

“Before, if you were to walk into a golf shop and you were to see the women’s offering, it was borderline insulting,” added Checketts.

That’s starting to change. Interest in the sport is growing among women and Gen-Z, with influencers further amplifying the online conversation around golf. Brands are responding: Ring Concierge and Malbon Golf’s team-up is just one of several female-focused golf collections released this season, from apparel brand Tuckernuck’s golfwear to Rhone’s expanding women’s selection.

Much like in other sports, the golf collections that are performing both address women’s needs on the course and are stylish enough to wear throughout the day afterwards. But the challenge lies in not only something that has the right details for golf — like pockets for tees and balls, or gloves with removable ball markers— but that are also tailored specifically to women’s bodies and needs, and not just a riff on the menswear that has long dominated the market.

“If menswear was behind in terms of the intersection of fashion and sport, women’s was leap years behind that,” said Malbon co-founder Erica Malbon. “Traditionally, [for] a lot of the bigger brands women were a secondary thought. Just shrink it, make it a more feminine color, and put it into the marketplace … that narrative is changing.”

Cart Content

Over a quarter of golfers today are women, according to the US National Golf Foundation, accounting for about 60 percent of golf’s total post-pandemic growth.

TikTok has played a major role in the increase in interest, particularly among younger players: According to influencer marketing platform Traackr, over the first half of 2025, the volume of TikTok creator posts about the sport grew 39 percent compared to the same period in 2024, while video views grew by 54 percent.

“It is cool to show yourself golfing on social,” said Ring Concierge’s Wegman. “Five years ago, your dad golfed, but you didn’t golf.” Ring Concierge’s Malbon collaboration social media posts — many of which featured the golf glove, which solved a pain point for female players — had double the engagement of their typical posts.

Some brands and creators have embraced the old-school, country club aesthetic of golf in their content, like Ring Concierge and Malbon’s activation, or The Masters merchandise hauls where creators share the pieces they picked up at the coveted Pro Shop at the Augusta, Georgia Tournament — creator Katie Feeney’s video racked up nearly 40,000 likes.

Others are flipping golf’s elitist connotations on its head with humorous content. Creator Gabby Gonzalez, for example, posted a video of golf WAGs watching a game, saying “I can see my future.” Cass Holland, known for posting “cart girl” content, gives viewers an “upper deck, lower deck” look at what it’s like to work at a golf course, she said. Some of her “day in the life” videos feature outfit inspiration and shots of her getting ready with makeup from brands like e.l.f. and Milk Makeup that can withstand long, sunny days on the course.

“Brands can think about these golf moments in the same way as a music festival,” said Halie Soprano, senior professional services consultant at Traackr. While an influencer at a music festival might need charging stations, sunscreen and beverages, brands need to consider how they can show up and add to the creator experience on the course or at a golf tournament.

For Tuckernuck, creator content has been an effective megaphone for its golf collections as well. Its post featuring its co-branded golf bag created alongside Stitch Golf received 10 times the engagement they see on their average posts. The brand plans to quadruple its influencer relationships for Tuckernuck Sport this season.

Female-First Collections

Golf-centric apparel makers are still figuring out how to best cater to this new clientele.

Malbon, for example, primarily focused on menswear when it launched in 2017, and womenswear still makes up less than 10 percent of its total offering. More recently, however, they’ve used collaborations to cater to increasing demand. Already this year, besides the Ring Concierge line, it’s rolled out collections with St. John and Jimmy Choo, its second with the footwear label and with an emphasis on the Asia-Pacific market through targeted seeding, store activations and PR; Malbon’s customers are evenly split between men and women in South Korea.

Golf has historically been regarded as a high-brow sport, and through partnering with Jimmy Choo and St. John, Malbon was targeting that upmarket customer. But it sees opportunity beyond the classic golf demographic, too. In June, it released a collaboration with Gap with the intent of creating a more accessible offering to cater to the growing cohort of Gen-Z golfers. And while the collection had more men’s pieces, it was the women’s items that sold out on launch day.

Selling golf apparel to women isn’t just about creating something that speaks to their sense of style, but also their performance needs. To ensure its products are up to snuff for women on the course, Rhone works directly with its Ladies’ PGA (LPGA) ambassadors like Lilia Vu and Lauren Hartlage to test and provide feedback on product fit and functionality, from inseam length to pockets. Its women’s golf collections have grown 129 percent since launch last year, with its “green grass” wholesale accounts, which include customers such as country clubs, pro shops and hotels, projected to be up 115 percent for women’s — compared to a 25 percent increase projected across its total business.

There’s also room in the middle: With its latest sports collection, Tuckernuck, known for its preppy dresses and separates, takes cues from nostalgic 1970s and 1980s golfwear, pairing functional factors like pockets and moisture wicking fabric with fashionable prints like gingham for dresses and skirts that are designed to be worn all day long. The collection gives the brand an opportunity to secure more of its existing customers’ shopping cart by “[filling] the needs of our customer, and this is an area where we know they’re buying and they’re frustrated,” said co-founder Madeline Grayson. It’s also a customer acquisition tool through wholesale relationships with resorts and country clubs.

“This is a huge ripe opportunity for women’s fashion brands,” said Soprano.