The insanely expensive truth behind Team Europe's Ryder Cup-winning uniforms

A key allure of golf is that it's often extremely easy to put yourself quite literally in the golf shoes of the pros. You can, to a certain extent, play with the clubs they use and wear what they wear. If you see a player win a major in a particular golf shirt one weekend, there's a good chance you can order and wear it for yourself the next.

The Ryder Cup, however, is a very different beast – as are the uniforms Luke Donald outfitted his victorious European team in over the weekend. Not only are they not for sale. Even if they were, however the brand that makes them ensures that only a very small group of people will ever be able to buy one.

The brand in question is Loro Piana – a Milan-based fashion designer and cloth maker long famed for its incredibly luxurious clothes, making both highly desirable ready-to-wear collections and fabrics for some of the world's most esteemed tailors. If you're semi-familiar with fashion, you might know that it had a starring role in bringing the 'quiet luxury' movement to the forefront a couple of years ago – primarily through providing a good bulk of the Roy family's incredibly expensive wardrobe in HBO series Succession.

Loro Piana took over the duties of making Team Europe's Ryder Cup uniform back in 2016, replacing Scottish brand Glenmuir and co-designing the uniforms with Europe's captains ever since. This year's outfits were famously created in collaboration with Donald, drawing upon the uniforms of three prior Ryder Cup away-winning teams as inspiration. 

"A good uniform can be an underrated part of playing in a team—it’s something that can help bond you together,” Donald told GQ in an interview about the designer's involvement. "I’ve been lucky to have seen the designs from an early stage and provided my input, and I’m really happy with how the team will look both on and off the course."

All of which begs the question: how much do they actually cost? Well, as we've already mentioned, the collection is reserved exclusively for the players. We can, however, gleam a rough idea from the Road to Golf capsule Loro Piana released to commemorate this year's cup. The Par Polo, made from a technical bio-based Nylon, will set you back a cool £620, while the cotton trousers run £710. As such, it's probably fair to assume each player was wearing in excess of £1500 worth of clobber out on course each of the three days. Want a limited-edition bag from the capsule? That'll be just under £15k.

Suffice it to say that it worked, even if there have been a few issues with the uniforms over the years. 2016's uniform was famously sweaty and it showed out on course, while the collars of this year's polos have come under plenty of criticism for, well, not really collaring.

You can check out the full collection here.