Raingate: The U.S. Ryder Cup Rain Suits Fail to Keep Players Dry

Stewart Cink 2010 RYDER Cup reading a putt – Turner Sports Images

Guest Post: Our friend over at http://www.sandbox8.com/ today brings you a look inside the Raingate situation at the Ryder Cup. Make sure you check Rob’s blog for other great golf stories and product reviews! You can also follow him on Twitter & Facebook.

PR Disaster For Sun Mountain Raingear

The opening round of the 37th Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, in Newport Wales, got off to a soggy start-we are not talking about the weather. The big story of the day was that U.S. Ryder Cup team ditched their rain suits that were made by Sun Mountain, due to it’s lack of ability to keep players dry. To remedy the situation, U.S. Ryder Cup Team Captain, Corey Pavin had officials from the PGA go to the merchandise tent to buy new rain suits

“It didn’t perform the way we would have liked it to perform, so we have remedied that and have some new raingear.” Said Corey Pavin, via @jasonsobel

As reported by Golf.com ,the PGA of America bought as many ProQuip rain suits as they could from the merchandise tent. Spokesman Julius Mason said there was enough to fit only the players and caddies – tan suits for the players, red for the caddies. Said PGA spokesman Julius Mason ” they had Ryder Cup logos, but there was nothing to distinguish this as an American uniform.”

We Meant Water Retaining Not Water Proofing

Biggest complaint by the players is that the rain suits were uncomfortable and weighed them down, because they retain so much water, instead of repel it.

Like we reported earlier, the U.S. Ryder Cup rain suits failed to keep the players dry, resulting in the PGA of America buying new rain gear from the merchandise tent. Here’s the official statement issued from by Sun Mountain:

Sun Mountain has been designing and selling outerwear for more than two decades. We have provided rainwear to 3,000 plus PGA of America Professionals and over 150 tour players, and supplied outerwear to numerous U.S. teams, including the Walker Cup and the 2000 and 2009 Presidents Cup teams. Sun Mountain has staff on the ground at the Ryder Cup working in conjunction with the PGA of America on this issue.

I wonder what issues they are working on in conjunction with the PGA of America?  The irony of all of this is that Sun Mountain’s last tweet from yesterday say’s “Outerwear is out in force with rain during Wednesday’s practice round at the Ryder Cup.”

Perhaps Sun Mountain will play the force majeure card and blame the rain suit failure on the weather. My guess it’s probably a manufacturing defect in the RainFlex fabric. At least I hope so. I’d be curious to know what kind of testing was done with the RainFlex fabric prior to the Ryder Cup?

Um…GORE-TEX Anyone?

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a big fan of the rain suits to begin with, which looked liked they belonged at Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame, than on a golf course. The biggest error in my opinion was not using a waterproof fabric on the rain suits, like GORE-TEX.  It’s a no brainer that if you are going to play golf in Wales at this time of the year to expect three things: wind, cool temperatures, and rain. Hello! Maybe next time, they’ll consult with the Gorton’s Fisherman for rain suit advice.  Oh wait, they did with the design of the rain  suit bucket hats.

Waterlogged Golf Bags

To make matters worse, we are now hearing complaints from the players that water is getting into the pockets of the Team golf bags as reported by Golf.com’s David Dusek via twitter ” water getting into pockets, stowed towels getting wet, bags getting heavy.” In case you’re wondering te golf bags are made by Belding.

– What do you think? Has Sun Mountain handled this situation properly?

– Are you a big fan of the U.S. Ryder Cup uniforms?