Andrea Hiland

Special for The Republic | azcentral.com

Question from Bill: If women are able to wear shorts on the LPGA tour, why aren't men allowed to wear shorts on the PGA tour?



Answer: I turned this one over to Mark Faller, director of azcentral sports. Here's how he explains the attire for professional golf:

"Although virtually every golf association in the world allows players, male or female, to wear shorts during competition, the PGA Tour forbids the practice. The tour calls it an issue of appearance: It wants players to appear professional on course.

"Here is language from a typical entry form for a PGA Tour event:

Appearance

Players: While on the host facility property, players shall present a neat appearance in both clothing and personal grooming. Blue jeans, shorts, cutoffs, T-shirts or shirts with no collar shall not be worn.

"Players grumble about the shorts ban from time to time, but there has been no serious effort to challenge the restriction. In a 2012 article on golfchannel.com, PGA Tour executive vice president Ty Votaw, who was once commissioner of the LPGA, was quoted as saying, 'We have no plans to change our policy on player attire.'

"The United States Golf Association, the governing body for golf in America, does allows shorts in its competitions, such as the U.S. Amateur, but it makes an exception for the U.S. Open and goes along with the PGA Tour's ban. Starting in 1999, the PGA Tour started to allow caddies to wear shorts when the heat index (a combination of temperature and humidity) rises above 100. This was in response to an incident at the Western Open outside Chicago when a caddy suffered a heart attack during the summertime tournament."