Wall Street's summer status symbol

Business Insider

16-07-2025

It's summer on Wall Street. Thus, enter the polo shirt. Thus, enter the golf polo shirt. Thus, enter the moisture-wicking technical golf polo shirt with the logo of the fancy schmancy golf course you've played at — the ultimate flex.
In the realm of hoity-toity sports, golf is among the hoity-toitiest. Sure, anyone can golf at public courses, and there's always Topgolf, but the most sought-after courses are at private clubs, generally open to members only (and their limited number of guests). The elitist, exclusive nature of the sport manifests in fashion — at least among a certain type of guy. Golf bros are low-key showing off to each other all the time, via polos and hats and other gear with logos of specific clubs and courses. Men I spoke with for this story describe the logoed gear as a "head nod," a "badge of honor," a "talisman," being "part of a secret society," and "like porn for golfing men."
Most insist it's about starting a conversation — guy A recognizes guy B's logo at work or the airport bar, and they chat. Vince Sampson, a 50-something attorney in Virginia, tells me he thinks the logos are a good ice breaker. "You end up talking about everything but the logo," he says. But these are subtle status symbols, and ones that sometimes spur some snark. They have a hierarchy to them and an unspoken set of rules for how and when they can be worn. Wearing too many logos at once is tacky, lest you become a "Bag Tag Barry." If you wear a golf polo to the office — which a lot of guys do — expect some eye rolls from the stuffier types. The most important rule: Under no circumstances can you wear a logo from a course you haven't played. It's stolen valor.
There's a certain type of guy — often with a certain-sized bank account — who seeks out status symbols. Maybe it's something quieter, like a specific cologne. Maybe it's a little louder, like an Eames chair or a watch. Maybe it screams, like a Ferrari. On the status symbol decibel scale, golf club logos whisper. They're one of those things that nobody cares about unless they really care — or know enough about golf course rankings to get why someone would care.
"Golfers, we're just really weird and kind of self-absorbed as a sport, and it's this entire subculture," says Todd Schuster, better known publicly as Tron Carter, who's one of the hosts of "No Laying Up," a podcast for whom he describes as golf "sickos" like himself. "This is all going on, meanwhile, the rest of society just has no idea."
Logoed merchandise is a revenue driver for golf courses. According to the Association of Golf Merchandisers, golf shops generate annual sales of over $1 billion a year, thanks to a growing assortment of golf merchandise and gear (including clothing that sometimes doesn't even comply with the course's dress code). Forbes estimated in 2022 that Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters, makes $69 million in merchandise sales from the tournament alone. Historically, course golf pros ran shops, but today more courses are running their retail operations themselves, given how lucrative they are. The merch is a marketing opportunity, too. It's a way to quietly advertise to a target group of customers and generate envy and buzz.
"With a course, if they want to be known as being this prestigious course or even a well-known resort course, you almost have to do this logo that you can market with your merch," says Ben Palet, a 30-something operations manager in Wisconsin who golfs multiple times a week. He compares the logo-peeking among golfers to an inside joke.
Under no circumstances can you wear a logo from a course you haven't played. It's stolen valor.
Alec Emerson, a 20-something trader in Chicago who's an avid golfer, wears a golf shirt to work almost every day in the summer. "Given that most of the best golf courses in the country are country club private courses, it is seen as a measure of clout of places that you've been — either, if you're lucky enough to be a member at a top, call it, 150 place, or you swim in these sort of finance circles," he says. "There's a lot of old money at these courses, and so there's this sort of conservative sense of in-group, out-group type thing going on."
As we chat, he ticks off the names of various courses and logos and their significance. A managing director at a high-end firm in New York might be a member at Winged Foot. A Sleepy Hollow logo translates to "big shot." Masters merch is so ubiquitous it could actually be a "negative status symbol," depending on who you're asking. The real juice is in the Augusta National logo, "a whole different ball game" that means the person played there — at least in theory. "The No. 1 crime you can commit," he tells me, is buying a shirt on eBay from a course you haven't played. "It's so egregious."
The logo ladder makes some sense, given the nature of the sport. The fact that the clubs are hard to get into — unlike a baseball diamond or basketball court — leads to a sense of scarcity, and exclusivity brings status. That you've been to an elite club is a signal of who you know (sometimes more than of how good you are at golf or how much you even like it). Some courses differentiate logos between merchandise for members and guests, or create logos for special events and tournaments, establishing an ultimate in-crowd ranking. And because golf attire isn't especially thrilling, for men in particular, the logos are a way to spice things up.
"There's a lot you can glean from someone about what logo they're wearing," Schuster says. "If you're going to wear something to the Hamptons, you've got Sebonack out there, which is the new money, a little bit more loud club. You've got National Golf Links, which is as old-school golfing as it gets. Or you've got Shinnecock, which is as high society, traditional as it gets."
The etiquette can be as dizzying as it can be ridiculous. Lots of people have lots of differing — and borderline catty — opinions about golf merch.
One 50-something insurance professional in Chicago tells me golf attire in the office has long been a pet peeve of his. "Golf shirts are for the golf course," he says, adding that he once called one of his charges out for sporting the look in the wintertime. "I was like, 'Are we going golfing this afternoon?' And he kind of looked at me with a blank stare." A 30-something private equity professional in New York jokes that he sees a lot of "clowns" sporting golf shirts around Midtown Manhattan during the summer, while also acknowledging he's sometimes one of said clowns. It's not so much the shirts that bug him; it's the conversations he gets forced into with guys who aren't even good at the game that get on his nerves. "I'm like, 'Dude, come on, let's talk about something else.' And it's people who suck at golf, too," he says. Both spoke with me on the condition of anonymity out of fear of being ostracized over their hot takes.
It's people who suck at golf, too.
Nick Ribeiro, who runs Preserved Links, a private club for golf aficionados, tells me the problem isn't the logos; it's the people who get jealous of the logos because they haven't played a round at the elite clubs. They'll make comments — in jest-ish — about people flaunting the logos, or they make fun of the "rules" and who is and isn't following them. A lot of the envy is unspoken, he says: "mostly a cry session between those without logos with each other." And in his mind, they should just try harder to meet members so they can get in. "They haven't put in the effort or the work in order to meet a member at any given club and build a relationship with that person to be one of the 20 guests he's allowed to bring in a year," Ribeiro says. "Younger people, they do to an extent believe that they should just be able to walk through the gate, play the golf course, order whatever they want to order, and the club should just roll the red carpet out for them."
Big-letter hats — as in baseball caps with block letters on them that are abbreviations or acronyms for certain clubs — are a point of contention among golfers. They were partially popularized by G/Fore, a golf and lifestyle brand, and its founder, who's a member of the Bel-Aire Golf Course and made "BACC" hats — a play on blood alcohol content — because the stereotype is that people drink a lot on the course. Now, they're ubiquitous, with different acronyms for different courses. Sampson tells me he finds them "distasteful." Schuster says they're "tacky," "corny," and "obnoxious." "Golf tends to be somewhat understated," he says.
There's some disagreement about how many logos are allowed to be worn at once, too. "If somebody's just logoed out head to toe, all right, probably that person either is just a douche or has a total inferiority complex or just doesn't get it," Schuster says.
A few people sent me a link to a document called "the sacred code of golf gear etiquette." Among the list of rules are no two of the same logo unless you're a member of the course, no driver headcover from a nonmember course, and no Masters gear unless you're under 18, over 65, or doing yard work. These supposed rules come with a wink and a nod, or as Ribeiro tells me, they're "half joke but def true." But as the saying goes, rules are made to be broken.
Anthony Polcari, a 20-something consultant and "vibrant masculinity" influencer in Washington, DC, who goes by Tony P online, doesn't seem to sweat these cultural golf edicts. He likes the big letter hats. He thinks it's fine to bring Bluetooth speakers onto the golf course. Perhaps most horrifyingly, Polcari — gasp! — would absolutely wear a logo from a course he hasn't played, especially if the shirt is nice. "A lot of folks take things very, very seriously," he says. "It's kind of like how people, a lot of my followers, will get on me for why I put ketchup on a hot dog."
Everyone else tells me that wearing a logo of a course you haven't played is the ultimate faux pas, because what if someone asked you about it? "It's almost the, I hesitate to say, sort of embarrassment of saying that you haven't been there. It might be awkward to have that as a conversation," says Sam Jones, a golf fashion influencer who goes by The Golf Fashion Guy online. "You're risking looking phony," says Don Bostic, the executive director at the Friars Golf Club, a virtual golf society. "I'm just going to feel weird," Sampson says.
If somebody's just logoed out head to toe, all right, probably that person either is just a douche or has a total inferiority complex or just doesn't get it.
I have to admit that I'm on Tony P's side here. If a stranger asks about the cute little insignia on your shirt, it's totally fine to blow them off or say it was a gift and move on. If you can bond over it, that's awesome! If not, that's fine, too! Who's played at what golf courses is a kind of lame thing to base a social power ranking on — it's probably good that golf is loosening up a little.
"It's become more of a, I would say, less stuffy game, where the game is actually more reachable to the masses from an accessibility perspective and just a cultural perspective," Polcari says.
There's also no guarantee the cool kids will think the logo is cool, in finance, among golf bros, or elsewhere.
"The only status symbol on Wall Street is your W-2 or K-1," says Josh Brown, a cofounder of Ritholtz Wealth Management in New York, in an email. "Everything else is Mickey Mouse."