It is August in Austin, which means the back nine happens at a hundred degrees and the only equipment decision that changes your afternoon is what sits on your head. So the run is built around that: rope crowns, mesh backs, perforated panels and full brims, from twenty-two brands, grouped by shape rather than by label.
What is not here is as deliberate as what is. No visors, because the top of your head is the part that burns. No beanies, for reasons that do not need explaining. No wool, corduroy or velvet either, all of which these same brands make and all of which can wait until November.
Prices sit in the currency each brand actually charges, with nothing converted: pounds for Manors and Macade, Australian dollars for Gumtree and Birds of Condor, dollars for the rest. The spread runs from a thirty dollar mesh trucker up to a seventy-six dollar Siegelman, which is a narrower range than the shapes suggest.
The Summer DefaultA rope across the front of an unstructured crown is the shape that says golf without saying much else. Most of these are cotton twill and most sit low. Two are perforated as well, which is the difference between a hat for nine holes and one for eighteen.
Built for Heat, Not Just Photographed in ItTrucker backs, perforated crowns and mesh side panels do the work in August, and this is the category that gets the least attention for it. Radry’s trucker is thirty dollars, the cheapest hat in the run.
When a Cap Isn't EnoughFour buckets follow, and one of them carries a neck flap. If you have played Lions or Hancock at two in the afternoon in July, you already understand the case for a full brim.
The Rest of ItThese are cotton twill in five panels, structured and unstructured, with nothing technical and nothing claiming to wick. They are the caps you keep in the car for the round you did not plan.
Anything that moves air. A trucker back, a perforated crown or mesh side panels will all beat solid cotton twill. In this edit that means Radry’s Rhino Pills trucker, Sunday’s brown trucker, Ghost’s perforated Core Logo and Sugarloaf’s mesh-sided Runner Cap. A full-brim bucket covers more skin than any cap, and Gumtree’s fishing hat adds a neck flap on top of that.
A visor leaves the top of your head exposed, which is the part that burns. A beanie is a different season entirely. We also cut wool, corduroy and velvet, all of which appear on these brands’ sites and none of which belong in Texas in August.
Random Golf Club’s Royal Snowball at $20, then Radry’s Rhino Pills trucker at $30. At the other end, Ghost Golf’s Core Logo is $60 and Gumtree’s fishing hat is A$65.
Not all of them. Manors is in pounds, Gumtree and Birds of Condor are in Australian dollars, and Macade is in pounds. Nothing here is converted — each price is what the brand itself charges, in its own currency.
Most do, but not all on the same terms. Gumtree sells from Australia through Squarespace rather than a conventional store, and Manors ships from the UK. Check each brand’s own shipping page before ordering, because international duty is usually the buyer’s problem.
A cord stitched across the front seam of an unstructured or lightly structured crown. It is a 1970s trucker detail that came back through golf, and it is cheap to add, which is part of why the shape is everywhere. Six of the twenty-eight hats here are rope crowns.
All of them. This is a cut, not a catalogue — the sweep behind it covered 705 hats across 35 brands and 530 of those were in stock. Radry in particular has a much deeper line, which is why they have their own post on this site.
Anything wool, corduroy, velvet or knit, on seasonal grounds. Anything with fewer than three usable product photographs, because a card with one photo looks broken next to a card with five. And a lot of plain logo caps that were perfectly fine and completely uninteresting.
