On Walking

You can tell a man's relationship with the game by whether he insists on walking. The carts get you to the next tee. The walk gets you to the round.

On a walking round, the bag becomes a companion. The yardages settle into your feet. The wind announces itself through the line of the bough above the cart path. You hear things you don't hear from a cart — a brown thrasher, a tower of geese, the slap of a ball in the rough two holes over.

You also slow down. Not all at once. By the fourth tee, you've stopped reaching for your phone. By the ninth, you've started noticing the dogwood. By the back, you are having a round in the proper sense — a round that becomes the day.

This is why we make the kind of clothes we make. A piece that is comfortable for the cart and uncomfortable for the walk is not a piece for the round. A polo that doesn't breathe at five miles, doesn't breathe at all. A quarter-zip that pinches at the swing isn't a quarter-zip — it's a costume.

The State Editions started as an answer to a smaller question: what does a man wear on the walk? The crest, when we got to it, was the answer to the larger one: who is he when he gets there?

"Walk, gentleman. The round is waiting."