IN THE BAG
By Gary Van Sickle
Golf is war on multiple fronts. You versus the course. You versus weather. You versus sandbagging bandits in your weekend game. You versus yourself, your homemade swing, your physical limitations, and the accompanying inner demons.
Also, golf is you versus the Sun. You may handle the rain or wind or out-sandbag your opponents, but the Sun is undefeated. It’s as big as 1.3 million Earths, runs a surface fever of 10,000 degrees, and can cause permanent blindness or retinal damage if you stupidly stare at it too long. So yeah, don’t do that.
This is why sunglasses should be your 15th club. You need protection for four to five hours on the course against glare and ultra-violet light exposure with glasses that aren’t too dark to see a ball in flight or decipher a green’s puzzling contours. There are hundreds of models out there – Fifty Shades of Shades, in bestselling book-speak – but here are four that work for me …
I discovered PeakVision ($130-$160) a few years ago and ended my long affair with cheap sunglasses. All you need to know about PeakVision is that when someone else tries on my pair, they say the same first word: “Wow!” It’s so predicable it’s funny.
The Wow Factor happens because PeakVision glasses somehow make your vision seem sharper. They’re not prescription lenses. I can’t explain how they work, it’s some proprietary super-science magic. But PeakVision owner David Feaser can explain it.
PeakVision glasses use a proprietary lens invented by scientist J. Paul Moore, who founded PeakVision and later sold it to Feaser. Its lens has the same clarity as crown glass, the gold standard for glass clarity. Most sports sunglasses are curved, which creates distortion because of polycarbonate in the lens, Feaser notes. Moore invented a material that eliminates the distortion. The practical effect is that the glasses turn you into the 1972 Johnny Nash song, “I Can See Clearly Now.”
The top fifth of a PeakVision lens is a neutral gray and darker than the bottom 60 percent, which is amber. So when you bend down to line up a putt, your view brightens if you lift your head to look through the amber portion. “The amber gives you three times more visual information than the naked eye,” Feaser says. “It’s like looking at HD (high definition). Our lens brings out anything that’s white, green or yellow and makes it pop. They’re one pair of glasses you don’t take off to putt. It’s a proprietary, one-of-a-kind thing that nobody else has.”
Feaser’s company is based in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and offers a variety of sport-specific glasses that include models for golf, tennis, baseball and, if it’s really a sport, pickleball. (Save that debate until after the adult beverages arrive.) I wear the PeakVision GX5 glasses for golf. They’re light, have no rims around the lens bottom and are so comfortable I pretty much wear them whenever I’m outdoors. When golf partners see me swing a club, no one says, “Wow!” At least not in a good way. When they try on my PeakVisions, though, it’s a different story.
Well, Adidas Dunamis ($213) sunglasses are named after an ancient Greek word that describes power of inherent force and was used in the New Testament to explain God’s power that comes from his believers. Adidas Dunamis are, the company says, “the pure expression of unleashed power and uncompromised performance for those who want maximum results.”
For athletes. Like, you know, us.
The Dunamis Bi models have a two-lens, half-rim design featuring windswept curved lenses that delivers aerodynamic performance. You don’t need that for golf unless you’re playing Speed Golf, and that’s not going to happen at any public course on a weekend. But they are remarkably light, only 27 grams, have improved rubber grips near the ears and stayed firmly in place even when I vehemently shook my head to indicate to my playing partner, “No, no, no, that putt is not good. Putt it!”
The stylish Dunamis have a new nose-pad that is adjustable in every direction. That would’ve been helpful when my opponent’s nose got out of joint after I denied his gimmie request. The shimmering-mirror lenses give me the same intimidating presence as a young David Duval, not to mention an aura of mystery. Or so I imagine.
I thought the ample nose bridge of TITE sunglasses ($250) was going to be a no-go zone for me. It was conspicuous at first try, and I was afraid it would be distracting. Three swings later, I never noticed it again. What’s good about the TITE model is that it’s all lens across the face, a lot of coverage, and has a unique option called TITE-TILT. The hinged frames crank down a few clicks so you can change the glasses’ angle to match the optimum optical center when you’re swinging or looking down to putt. It’s a nifty, ingenious trick that I found super useful. Plus, it made me feel like a member of a secret club.
Apparently, I was among the few humans unaware of Warby Parker, which revolutionized the eyewear industry by selling direct to consumers and now has a valuation of nearly $3 billion, including brick-and-mortar stores. Then I test-drove the Flint model glasses ($195), part of its sports collection and designed to be “high-performance lenses in classic shapes you can wear everywhere,” according to the company. I was pleasantly surprised to find the frames easy to wear, light, and snug on my head, and the lightly curved, grayish-green-tinted lenses delivered as promised. So, two newly enlightened thumbs up from me.