What Men Should Wear to Play Golf at East Lake Golf Club

East Lake Golf Club permits a hooded sweatshirt and in the same short document insists your shirt be tucked in, and that pairing is the surprise for anyone reading a course dress code for the first time. Wear a collared shirt, or a short sleeved or long sleeved mock turtleneck, and tuck it in. Wear golf style shorts cut mid thigh or longer, or wear long trousers. Outerwear designed for golf is permitted and that explicitly includes a hooded sweatshirt, while outerwear the club reads as streetwear is not. Leave the cargo pants and cargo shorts, the gym and workout clothes, and the tennis clothes at home. Put on soft spike golf shoes. On denim the club publishes no ruling at all, which is not the same thing as permission, so do not test it on the one round you were invited to play.

The club writes this for a particular reader: "The following guidelines apply to guests of Members." Read it in that voice. You are invited, you are walking the whole way, and the morning will be colder than the afternoon by roughly twenty degrees in late autumn. Everything quoted below comes from the club's own pages, its guest information page and its history page, and nothing beyond them is stated here as fact.

You may wear a hooded sweatshirt at East Lake

A hooded sweatshirt is permitted at East Lake, by name, in writing. The club publishes this: "Outerwear designed for golf, including hooded sweatshirts, is permitted. Outerwear considered streetwear rather than golf attire is not permitted." Almost no published course dress code says anything at all about outerwear. This one does, and the second sentence is where the real rule lives, because it does not rule on a shape. It rules on purpose.

That is a harder test than a banned list, and a fairer one. The club is not telling you that hoods are out. It is telling you that two garments with the same silhouette can land on opposite sides of the line depending on what they were built to do. A clean, muted, golf cut hooded layer with no graphic reads as golf outerwear. A heavy cotton hoodie with a chest print, a gym logo across the shoulders and a rope drawstring reads as streetwear, and the refusal sentence exists precisely to stop that at the first tee. None of this is the club approving a particular garment, and PILLAR has no affiliation with East Lake Golf Club. The judgment gets made by you, in the parking lot, against the question the code is actually asking.

Decide it on that basis and the rest of your day gets easier, because a hood earns its place at East Lake for reasons that have nothing to do with the code. You are on foot for every yard. The first hour is the cold one. A hood is the only layer you can deploy and stow without breaking stride or asking your caddie for anything. For the mechanics of wearing one over a collar without crushing the collar underneath it, read how to wear a polo under a hoodie.

A mock turtleneck may stand in for the collar

A mock turtleneck satisfies the East Lake code in place of a collar, in either sleeve length. The page is unambiguous: "Collared shirts and short- or long-sleeved mock turtleneck shirts are acceptable. Shirts must be tucked in." That is a genuine option in December rather than a technicality, because the neck is the first part of you to feel a 38 degree morning and an open collar does nothing about it.

The collar is still the default, and it is the thing most guests get slightly wrong rather than flatly wrong. A soft, rolled, washed out collar technically clears the rule and still reads as carelessness in a place like this. What you want is a collar that is still standing at the eighteenth after four hours and twenty minutes on foot, and that is a construction question, not a brand question.

PILLAR David Polo, Navy

$76

The collar the code is actually asking for, and it is built to be tucked. Navy keeps the decision quiet, which is the right register for a round you were invited to play.

• 84% nylon, 16% spandex
• Four way stretch, sweat wicking
• Classic athletic fit
• Firm collar that holds its shape
• U cut hem, pre shrunk

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On how PILLAR polos sit against the other performance golf brands, that argument belongs in the full comparison of men's golf polos and not in a dress code guide. If you want a print instead of a solid, the PILLAR Steven Polo at $76 is the print option, 88% polyester and 12% spandex in a cooling sweat wicking textured knit with four way stretch, a classic athletic fit, a U cut hem and pre shrunk fabric, shown here in the Brew print. The rest of the range sits in men's polos.

Your shirt must be tucked, so the hem matters

Your shirt must be tucked in at East Lake, which converts hem shape from a matter of taste into a matter of compliance. The club states it flatly, "Shirts must be tucked in." It then lists "non-hemmed shirts" among the garments it refuses outright. Two separate sentences on one short page, both about hems. The club has thought about this more than most guests have.

A tucked shirt that keeps pulling free is a shirt cut wrong for the job. It is usually too short through the body, or squared off at the bottom so the side seams carry no extra length. Walking eighteen holes compounds it, because you are bending for a tee, reaching into a bag, and taking a full swing roughly seventy times with nobody driving you between shots. A U cut hem drops longer at the front and back and sits shallower at the hips, which is the shape that stays buried in your waistband through all of that. Both PILLAR polos named on this page are cut that way, and that is the single detail worth checking before you pack.

Length is the other half of the same problem, and it is the part men guess at. Too short and nothing holds. Too long and the tuck bunches and looks like a bedsheet. The measurements and the reasoning are laid out in how long a polo should be. Get the hem right and you never think about the rule again, which is the whole point of dressing properly for a club like this.

Shorts may be worn, and the page sets the length

Shorts are permitted at East Lake and the page gives you the measurement rather than leaving it to taste: "Golf-style shorts and long trousers are permitted. Garments must be neat in appearance, and shorts must be mid-thigh or longer." Mid thigh is the floor, not the target. Aim a little past it and the question never comes up. The word to notice in that sentence is golf style, which is the same intent test the outerwear rule runs, applied below the waist.

Whether you want shorts at all is a calendar question. Atlanta averages a daily high of 72 F and a low of 53 F in October, 63 F and 44 F in November, and 55 F and 38 F in December. The cool season runs 2.9 months, from November 28 to February 25, with average daily highs below 60 F. Those are Atlanta figures confirmed against Weather Spark for the city, not readings taken on the course, and that is the only way to read them.

Which gives a simple rule. In October, shorts with a layer you can shed. In November, trousers for a morning tee time and shorts only if you are going out after noon. In December, trousers, and do not negotiate with yourself about it at six in the morning. Trousers also quietly solve the tuck, because a trouser waistband holds a shirt better than a short does over four hours and twenty minutes of walking. If you want the same decision made for a colder, sandier, more exposed golf course, the companion guide to what men should wear at Forest Dunes runs the same reasoning against a different climate.

Cargo pants may not come, and neither may gym clothes

Cargo pants, cargo shorts and gym clothes are refused at East Lake by name. The club prints the list: "Athletic or workout attire, cargo pants or shorts, tennis attire, excessively tight clothing, halter tops, racerback tops, bare midriffs, and non-hemmed shirts are not permitted." Read that beside the outerwear rule and the logic snaps into focus. The club is not maintaining a catalog of forbidden items for its own sake. It is naming the categories that make the intent test easy to apply, and every entry on that list was designed for something other than golf.

That is why a hood passes and a gym hoodie does not. Same hood, different brief. What the page refuses tells you more about how it will be enforced than what the page permits.

Cargo pants or shorts

Named and refused, which means the pockets are the problem and not the fabric. A plain golf short or trouser with nothing hanging off the thigh clears it. Do not try to argue that a small utility pocket is not cargo.

Athletic or workout attire

This is the clause that catches most streetwear by the back door. A garment built for the gym stays a gym garment at East Lake no matter how technical the fabric is or what it cost.

Tennis attire

Refused even though tennis clothing is a racket sport's version of the same collar. The club is ruling on what the garment was made for, which is the clearest proof that intent and not category is the standard here.

Non-hemmed shirts and tight clothing

The hem clause backs up the tucking rule, and the fit clause means a performance shirt cut like a compression layer is the wrong call. A classic athletic fit is the safe register.

You cannot ride, so every layer must be worn or carried

You cannot ride at East Lake unless you hold a state issued handicap certificate, so dress for a round you will walk end to end. The club is direct about all of it: "East Lake is a walking-only golf club, and caddies are required for guests." and "Golf carts are available only to players with a state-issued handicap certificate." and "A caddie will accompany each golf cart and carry the golf bags." The weight is published too: "Golf bags must not exceed 25 pounds." So is the clock: "The established pace of play at East Lake is 4 hours and 20 minutes." and "Groups falling behind this pace will be approached by a member of the Golf Staff, who will provide further direction as needed."

Add those lines up and the layering decision changes shape. There is no cart basket to toss a sweater into at the third hole. Whatever you bring, you either wear it or your caddie carries it inside twenty five pounds, alongside your clubs. That is the practical argument for one good layer rather than three mediocre ones, and for choosing a layer you will actually keep on. The temperature spread is the real problem, not the cold. A 53 degree low and a 72 degree high in October is roughly twenty degrees of change across a walked round, and walking generates its own heat on top of that.

This is not a wind post, and it would be dishonest to write one. Atlanta's windiest month is March, at an average hourly 7.0 miles per hour. That is not a wind problem and nothing in your bag needs to solve for it. Which is also the reason there is no vest on this page: a vest is an answer to wind, and a walked round in Atlanta wants sleeves at the start and nothing on the arms by the turn.

PILLAR Alec Quarter Zip, Blue

$98

The first tee layer for a 53 degree morning, and it zips down rather than coming off, which matters a great deal when you are walking and there is no basket to put it in.

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PILLAR Hayden Hoodie, Beige

$98

The piece the code names by hand, for the range before the round and the drive home. The page permits golf outerwear including a hooded sweatshirt and refuses streetwear, and a plain muted hoodie with no graphic reads as the former where a graphic gym hoodie reads as the latter.

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PILLAR Alec Crew, Black

$85

For the Clubhouse after the round, where appropriate golf attire is permitted throughout. Black over a navy polo is the easiest thing you will decide all day.

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What goes under the layer is the part men get wrong, because a cotton tee under a zip on a walked round is how you finish nine holes damp. The reasoning is in what to wear under a quarter zip, and the full set of layers sits in men's pullovers.

The turn can take a layer off your hands

The turn is the one point in the round where a layer can change hands, and that is a function of how the course is routed. The club's own account of its architecture is specific: "Ross's routing plan (which still exists today) had each nine concluding at the Club." That is unusual, and on a walking only course with a caddie working inside a twenty five pound limit it is the most useful piece of golf course architecture on the property. You pass the building twice.

The history behind that routing is worth knowing before you play it. Per the club's history page, "Established in 1904, East Lake was originally designed by architect Tom Bendelow." The club purchased "a 178 acre tract of land in nearby DeKalb County, which was the site of former amusement park." Then, "In 1913, the Club hired Donald Ross to completely rework the Bendelow design," and "Over the years, Ross' routing remained basically intact." George Cobb did some work in 1959 in preparation for the Club to host the Ryder Cup in 1963. After years of neglect, Rees Jones restored East Lake in 1993. In 2024, architect Andrew Green completed a complete restoration of the course. East Lake Golf Club first hosted the TOUR Championship in 1998, and East Lake looks forward to welcoming the championship again in 2027. The club lists the 1950 U.S. Women's Amateur, the 1963 Ryder Cup, the 2001 U.S. Amateur and the TOUR Championship among its championships.

The scorecard the club publishes is par 72 across five sets of tees: Championship at 7,515 yards, Medal at 6,950, Jones at 6,500, Member at 6,100 and Forward at 4,800. Walk the Member tees and you are still walking six thousand yards plus the distance between them, inside four hours and twenty minutes. Plan the round in two halves around the building in the middle.

Denim can only be guessed at, so do not test it

Denim is the one item on this page you have to guess at, because East Lake publishes no ruling on it anywhere. That silence deserves naming as a silence rather than being filled in. The page is detailed enough to measure your shorts at mid thigh, to refuse cargo pockets by name, and to rule on tennis clothing and non-hemmed shirts. A code that specific which then says nothing about jeans is not handing you an opening. The honest reading is that the omission is not permission, and a guest of a member does not spend his one invited round establishing where the line falls. Wear trousers.

Two other silences are worth naming for the same reason. On shoes, the only published line is "Soft-spike golf shoes are permitted." No other footwear is banned in print, so wear soft spikes and do not invent a prohibition the club has not written. On hats, the only published request concerns the building: "Golfers are requested to remove caps and visors inside the Clubhouse and wear them with bills facing forward when outdoors." Nothing is published about caps on the course itself, so that request is the entire rule, and it is a courtesy worth honoring without being asked twice.

Inside, the standard is the same one you played in: "Appropriate golf attire is permitted throughout the Clubhouse." Which means the round and the hour after it are one outfit rather than two, provided the outfit was chosen properly. Collar tucked, trousers, soft spikes off at the door, cap off inside, a clean crew or hood over the top if the afternoon has turned. Dress for the walk and the Clubhouse takes care of itself.

East Lake Golf Club dress code, common questions