What Men Should Wear to Play Golf at Wailea

Wailea allows denim and does not require a collar, in writing, on its own FAQ page. The exact language is that you do not need a collared or golf specific shirt, and that t-shirts, jeans and jean shorts are all welcome as long as they are in good condition, meaning no rips, tears or holes. What the page does rule out is swimwear, jogging shorts and anything that exposes the midriff. Shoes are required, closed toe golf or athletic shoes or golf specific sandals are recommended, and metal or ceramic spikes and soccer style cleats are not permitted. That policy governs all three courses here, Gold, Emerald and Blue. Then the same page, lower down in its Local rules and etiquette section, says proper golf attire is required at all times and never defines what that means. So the honest answer has two halves. You will not be turned away in a clean pair of jeans and a clean t-shirt, and you should still wear a performance polo, because the rule has stopped deciding the shirt for you and four other things still argue for a collar.

First light

Sunrise at 6:16 is the only cool air Kihei gives you all day

Pack for heat, not for cold. Kihei runs an average October high near 86 F and an average low near 71 F, and the low happens while you are still asleep. Sunrise moves from 6:16 AM on October 1 to 6:27 AM on October 31, and daylight shrinks across the month from about 11 hours 56 minutes to about 11 hours 23 minutes, so a dawn tee time is genuinely early and genuinely brief in its cool window.

That window is the only argument for a layer on this island, and it is one layer. Maui does not ask you to pack a vest, a crew or a hoodie for a golf course. Any guide that tells you otherwise has never stood on the first tee at 7 AM in Wailea with the trades already moving.

On the range

By 6:40 on the range, the published rule has already said yes

The dress code lives on the club's FAQ page, under a first heading that reads Dress code, and it is more permissive than anything else you will read tonight. In its own words, "You don't need to wear a collared or golf-specific shirt to enjoy your round." It goes further: "T-shirts, jeans, and jean shorts are all welcome, as long as they're in good condition (no rips, tears, or holes)."

The limits are short and sensible. The page asks you to "please avoid swimwear, jogging shorts, and clothing that exposes the midriff", and on footwear it says "Shoes are required. Closed-toe golf or athletic shoes, or golf-specific sandals are recommended." The one hard no is spikes: "metal or ceramic spikes and shoes like soccer cleats are not permitted". The page also asks for a neat, clean and tidy appearance, which is the real standard hiding inside a permissive policy.

Nothing on that page addresses the practice facility or the range separately. There is no range specific rule to read, so the safe play is simple. Warm up in the shirt you intend to play in.

First tee

Seven on the first tee is where the contradiction gets settled

The page disagrees with itself, and the starter resolves that disagreement, not you. Scroll to the bottom of the same FAQ page, into the Local rules and etiquette section, and you find a flat sentence with no definition attached: "Proper golf attire is required at all times." One section of the page tells you a t-shirt is welcome. Another section of the page asks for proper golf attire. Nobody reconciles those two lines in writing, which means the man at the first tee reconciles them in person, on sight, in about two seconds.

Then there is the group. A resort tee time gets paired, and you do not know who you are paired with until you are standing next to them. You can be the man in the t-shirt the policy allows, or you can be the man whose shirt nobody thinks about. The second one is free. We made the same argument about a club whose rule is written the other way around in our guide to dressing for Arcadia Bluffs, and the conclusion holds at both ends of the spectrum.

Mid morning

By eight the sun is over the slope and the collar starts earning its keep

A collar is sun cover for the back of your neck, and that is the strongest non policy reason to wear one at Wailea. The club publishes a pace of play "per the USGA and our GPS system is 4 hours and 20 minutes", so call it four hours and twenty minutes of exposure at a latitude where the sun sits nearly overhead. The course runs along an exposed slope above the resort, with centuries old lava rock walls and ocean behind a lot of the holes, and almost nothing between you and the sky.

Fabric is the second half of that. A performance knit moves sweat off the skin and keeps its shape. A cotton t-shirt holds the sweat against you and then hangs there for the back nine, which is the difference the policy does not care about and your afternoon does. If you want the material argument in full, we broke it down in nylon against polyester for a golf polo.

01

David Polo, Navy

$76

The shirt that settles the contradiction. The dress code does not require a collar, the Local rules and etiquette line asks for proper golf attire, and a navy performance polo ends that conversation at the first tee and again at dinner. The firm collar is the published spec that matters here, because it is the one that stands up instead of lying flat on the back of your neck for four hours and twenty minutes of overhead sun.

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02

David Polo, White

$76

An average high of 86 F and a sun that sits almost straight above you. White is the coolest ground on this page and the colorway that shows the least sweat while you are wearing it. The nylon and spandex knit is sweat wicking and pre shrunk, which is the entire case for not playing in a cotton t-shirt even though the club will happily let you.

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Two hours in

Two hours in, the trades have been up at 13 the whole time

The wind here is a constant, not an event. Kihei's average hourly wind speed in October is essentially flat across the entire month at about 13.1 mph, varying by no more than 0.2 mph, and the predominant direction is east, peaking at 93 percent of hours on October 1. You are not waiting to see what the wind does. You already know.

Cloud and rain are mild and move slowly. The chance of overcast or mostly cloudy skies rises from 37 percent to 43 percent across the month, and the chance of a wet day sits at about 14 percent the whole way through. That is a round you dress for once, in the morning, and then forget about.

October averages for Kihei, Hawaii, per Weather Spark. These are Kihei figures, not readings taken on the golf course.

Through the turn

Four hours and twenty minutes is the pace the club publishes

The club sets that pace itself, "per the USGA and our GPS system is 4 hours and 20 minutes", and the Gold Course is built to use every minute of it. The Gold Course page credits the design to "Created by master architect Robert Trent Jones II", opened in 1994, and describes a layout that "takes advantage of the terrain's natural undulations", with "centuries-old lava rock walls" and "Endless ocean vistas". It plays to a par 72 at 7,078 yards from the back tee, with a slope of 138 and a rating of 74.5. It is the "Former home of the Champions Skins Game", and the club notes it has hosted Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. The address is 100 Wailea Golf Club Dr, Kihei, Hawaii 96753, on Maui.

Carts are included in the green fee, with a published limit of "2 person maximum per standard golf cart", and junior golfers under 18 who hold a full use driver's license need a parent or guardian release before they can operate one. The club publishes no walking policy at all on its FAQ page, so if you want to walk this slope, ask the golf shop when you check in rather than assuming either answer.

The first hour, in reverse

One hour of the round is all that asks for a layer

Take one thin quarter zip and stop there. A 6:16 sunrise, a 71 F average low and 13 mph of east trade wind on an exposed slope add up to a single thin layer for the first hour, the range session before it, and the air conditioning in the car and the clubhouse on either side. They do not add up to a vest, a crew or a hoodie, and none of those belongs in a Maui golf bag in October. Refusing the second layer is the useful part of this advice. Browse the PILLAR pullover range if you want the full picture, then buy one.

The other shirt in this pair is the one the dress code makes possible. A club that welcomes a t-shirt is not asking you to be conservative, and that is permission worth using.

03

Steven Polo, Brew

$76

The print case, and Wailea is where it is strongest. A dress code that welcomes a clean t-shirt is not a dress code asking the shirt to stay quiet, so a print polo clears the collar question and still reads as a decision rather than an accident. It is 88 percent polyester and 12 percent spandex, textured, with four way stretch for a swing that has to work into a constant east wind.

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04

Alec Quarter Zip, Blue

$98

This is the one layer, not a cold weather layer, and the distinction is the whole point. A 6:16 sunrise, a 71 F low and 13 mph of east trades on an open slope call for a thin quarter zip through the first hour, the range before it, and the air conditioning either side of the round. Maui does not call for a vest, a crew or a hoodie on the golf course. One layer in blue is the entire answer.

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By eleven

By eleven you have met everything the policy declined to say

Four things are simply not in the published rule, and you should not let anyone sell you convention as policy. Where the page is silent, here is the safe play and nothing more.

• No hat rule. Nothing about caps, visors, brims or which direction they point. Wear what you want, keep it clean and tidy, which is the appearance standard the page does ask for.
• No shorts length figure. No inseam, no measurement, no mention of length at all. Jean shorts in good condition are explicitly welcome, so a standard golf short is comfortably inside the line.
• No sock rule. Not mentioned, in either direction. The footwear language is entirely about the shoe and the spike.
• No range or practice facility clause. The dress code is written once and applies to the property, so wear the shirt you are playing in.

That is the difference between a quiet dress code and a permissive one. Wailea's policy speaks, and what it says is yes. Compare that with a club that writes the whole thing down in detail and leaves you nothing to decide, which is the situation we covered in what to wear at The Broadmoor.

Late afternoon

At four in the afternoon the shirt still has to go to dinner

You are in a resort, so the round does not end your day, it ends one part of it. A collar is what lets a single shirt carry the range, four hours and twenty minutes of golf, the walk back and a table that evening without a change in between. A t-shirt ends at the parking lot. That is the practical version of the same argument we make about the polo against the button down when the setting is business casual rather than Hawaii.

Colorway follows the terrain. Against black lava rock walls, ocean behind nearly every look and a high overhead sun, navy holds its depth where lighter neutrals wash out, white is the coolest ground you can stand in and the one that shows the least sweat, and a print polo belongs here more than almost anywhere else, because this is the one course where the dress code is not asking the shirt to be conservative. The full range sits in the PILLAR polo collection.