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There’s a memorable early episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David insists on wearing head-to-toe golf clothes despite having no plans to play. He just likes the look. He wears horizontal stripe polos tucked into khaki chinos and his friends are baffled. Golf shirts belong on the golf course—not anywhere else, they argue.
The sport has long been synonymous with oversized polos, pleated trousers and clunky shoes that looked out of place the moment you left the clubhouse. And while modern performance fabrics have made golf apparel lighter and more technical, much of it still resembles synthetic gym wear with a collar.
Since its founding in 2017, the Los Angeles-based Malbon Golf has helped rewrite golf’s dress code by borrowing from streetwear, menswear, and vintage golf style rather than contemporary golfing norms. The result is clothing that performs on the course but looks just as natural in your life off the course.
In other words, Larry was just a couple of decades too early.
Founder Stephen Malbon grew up playing golf on a municipal course in Virginia Beach before abandoning the game in his teens because, as he has said, golf simply wasn’t considered cool. After rediscovering it while caddying during art school, he picked the game up again after moving to Los Angeles in 2015. When his personal Instagram followers showed little interest in his golf posts, he started a dedicated golf account (somewhat of a moodboard) that gained traction until his wife and now business partner, Erica, encouraged him to start a brand. That eventually became the foundation for Malbon.
Malbon expertly merges the past and the present, designing golf apparel that gets the technical details right while presenting them through a much more modern lens.
The collections include everything from polos, shorts and trousers to quarter-zips for men, alongside pleated skirts, knit polos and playful details for women. Accessories like bucket hats nod to Caddyshack-era Bill Murray, while more streetwear-leaning long-sleeve tees and hoodies round out the collections. The brand’s playful logo especially feels out of step with stuffy old-school brands.
The timing couldn’t have been better. As a younger generation discovered golf during the pandemic, many were looking for apparel that felt less like a country club uniform and more like the clothes they already wore. Instead of leading with performance fabrics and technical features, Malbon blended contemporary menswear with classic golf style to create pieces that looked just as good off the course as they did on it. It even opened a flagship on one of Los Angeles’ most fashion-conscious shopping streets, steps from the Supreme store and its hypebeast line-ups.
The brand’s lookbooks and social media helped reinforce that image. Rather than filling campaigns with Tour pros, Malbon featured people from skateboarding, fashion and music, including skateboard legend—and legitimate golfer—Eric Koston. Co-signs from figures like Tyler, the Creator only strengthened its cultural credibility.
Since then, Malbon has gone from indie outsider to one of golf’s defining brands. Early collections leaned into irony and graphic-heavy pieces. Today, the collections include elevated knitwear, tailored trousers inspired by the era of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and refined outerwear that recalls a time when golfers simply wore their weekend clothes to the course. Collaborations with established golf brands like FootJoy, TaylorMade, Callaway, sportswear heavy hitters like Adidas and New Balance, and even Evian water have only expanded the brand’s reach.
Those collaborations earned Malbon fashion credibility, but signing PGA Tour pro Jason Day in 2024 earned it golf credibility. Suddenly, one of the game’s biggest names was wearing Malbon, and he was turning every tournament into a conversation about golf style. His relaxed trousers and bold sweater-vest looks at the 2024 Masters became some of the week’s biggest talking points. Since then, Malbon has added LPGA star Charley Hull—whose bold personality made her a natural fit—as well as older pros and style icons like Jesper Parnevik and Fred Couples to its ambassador roster.
By the end of that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry David is inevitably caught wearing golf clothes by the very acquaintance he claimed he’d given up the game to. One look at Larry’s outfit is enough for the man to accuse him of lying. Today, Larry’s defence might actually hold up. Malbon has redefined what golf style can be—and inspired a new generation of players to dress accordingly.