Playing golf year-round in the Cape Region is often a pleasant option, but this year’s blizzards showed it is never guaranteed.
The non-snowbirds among us must content themselves with hopes for warmer weather before the April 1 start of the new season.
Here are a few suggestions for productive preseason preparations.
Several private clubs offer indoor golf simulators as an amenity for their members. These devices are a booming part of modern club operations, and with good reason.
For public golfers, there are at least two accessible local alternatives. The simulator at American Classic Golf Club in Midway is available for reservations on Wednesdays and Saturdays through March. Call head golf professional Sam Cresta at 302-703-6662 or email him at samcresta8@gmail.com.
The Foreland Club in Ocean View, adjacent to Bear Trap Dunes, offers monthly, biannual or annual memberships, along with limited nonmember hourly bookings (theforelandclub.com). Call 302-402-6645 or email info@theforelandclub.com for more information.
Club cleaning is always a good midwinter activity for the golf starved. A scrubby sponge with a mix of Dawn dish soap and hot water refreshes your grips and brings back the tacky feel. I also use Timberland’s Waximum clear protector to shine up my driver, fairway wood and hybrid heads.
For grips that are too far gone, however, Cape Region golf pros offer inexpensive re-gripping services.
The Rookery’s pricing includes the new grips, which range from $12 to $20 for clubs and $15 to $35 for putters (302-684-3000). At American Classic, golfers can bring in their own grips for one price, or use the grips sold at the pro shop for a different price (302-703-6662).
The Rookery is again offering clinics beginning in April for juniors, women and men. The slots fill quickly, however, so sign up soon at Rookerygolf.com.
Imperial Headwear – the memory business
Golfers are among the largest souvenir collectors in all of sports.
Millions of players own keepsakes from the courses they play – a pencil, a scorecard, a ball marker or a golf ball emblazoned with the club’s logo.
Over and above these trinkets, club logo’d clothing and accessories are a large and profitable element of most pro shops’ offerings.
Imperial Headwear is happy to keep them in stock.
At the 2025 PGA Show last month, I met Jerry Biag, director of marketing for the Bourbon, Missouri-based company. We chatted about golf’s recent boom and what that meant for his business.
“We’ve seen an uptick in golfers playing across the nation,” Biag said. “We’re in the memory business, so we want to make the clubs’ logos really memorable. It’s about bringing their brands up to the forefront. We know that consumers are going out there, and when they’re visiting your great club, they want to take something home with them to commemorate that memory. Headwear is one of those pieces where we really excel, along with shirts and belts and hoodies.”
He continued, “For us, it’s about bringing that club’s brand forward, and bringing to them the newest technologies and styles in apparel and headwear. This year our new styles, our two-tone varieties, we have in all our best-selling styles. We also updated our 5054 and 7054 models, some of our best-sellers, with a perforated design to add ventilation and cooling as a lightweight option.”
The company’s model X210P is their “classic dad hat,” Biag said. Made with performance fabrics, the lightweight, low-profile cap provides UPF 50+ protection. It also comes with an antibacterial sweatband. The cap fabric’s moisture-wicking capability reduces the chance for sweat marks, the perennial bane of cotton caps.
For a higher-profile look, Biag suggested the 5054 line called The Wrightson. Besides the high cap, the model comes with a retro-look rope where the lid meets the cap. The 7054 model, The Wingman, matches the rope element with a lower cap profile. This year both models are also available in two-tone looks, usually a light-colored cap matched with a contrasting dark brim.
Imperial works with the clubs on developing a variety of logo styles, from 3D insignias to felt appliqués to simpler print designs, Biag said. In a classic example of golf’s small-world syndrome, the X210P model cap in the catalog featured the well-known ram logo of Wilmington Country Club.
Biag also showed me some of the perforated caps. Extremely light fabric is dotted with holes to provide even more cooling properties. Stylistically, they are far removed from the 1970s-era trucker caps Boomer golfers might recall from long ago.
Bucket hats are making a comeback, he said. The company’s 1371P model, the Oxford Performance Bucket, is one of their best-sellers.
The company recently signed PGA Tour player Keith Mitchell to its stable of players. The Georgia golfer, whose nickname on tour is “Cashmere Keith,” is leading a resurgence of interest in visor caps. The 3161 Tour Visor model uses a terry twill sweatband behind the high-profile front.
Biag also showed me several of their other logo offerings on shirts, belts and outerwear.
The company’s website includes a wide selection of styles for direct purchase, as well as a Design Your Own option (Imperial1916.com).
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Fritz Schranck has been writing about the Cape Region's golf community since 1999. Snippets, stories and anecdotes from his columns are included in his new book, "Hole By Hole: Golf Stories from Delaware's Cape Region and Beyond," which is available at the Cape Gazette offices, Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, Biblion Books in Lewes, and local golf courses. His columns and book reviews are available at HoleByHole.com.
Contact Fritz by emailing fschranck@holebyhole.com.
