Last year I opined on the-then newly released Forrester’s/Payntr golf shoe collaboration. In doing so, I found myself once again confronting the singular achievement of what I shall call the Jones Boys. No, not Robert Sr, Robert Jr and Rees, but Chris Carnahan and his cohorts at Jones Sports, whose resurrection of the moribund and half-forgotten Forrester’s brand is a far more improbable feat.
Forrester’s, founded in 1951 in Portland, Oregon by Fiske Forrester an entrepreneur and self-professed golf obsessive – was born from a simple and eminently sensible insight: that golf, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, is an outdoor sport in a region that seems constitutionally opposed to outdoor leisure.
Drawing on his background manufacturing waterproof aprons for the food industry, Forrester pivoted into high-performance rain gear for golfers, thereby creating one of the earliest genuinely functional golf apparel brands. In an era when most golf clothing seemed designed either to advertise country club membership or to inhibit movement entirely, Forresters instead solved an actual problem.
The Pacific Northwest, lest anyone mistake it for a soggy cultural backwater, is also home to some of the most compelling golf landscapes on earth: Bandon Dunes Resort and its embarrassment of riches, including Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald Course. There is also Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, site of Tiger Woods’ third consecutive amateur victory, Sahalee
Country Club and Chambers Bay, each of which have hosted major championships, and the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, which features the only green in golf requiring maritime transport. It is precisely this marriage of savage weather and sublime terrain that made Forresters essential and, later, its decline so regrettable.
Enter the Jones Boys
Carnahan and his team acquired the brand and promptly did what, so few modern revivals manage: they restored its purpose without embalming its style. The result is a line of outerwear that is contemporary without being trend-chasing, technically serious without appearing joyless, and restrained in its branding at a time when most golf apparel resembles a traveling billboard stitched onto polyester.
I have been fortunate enough to test several pieces from the current lineup, which presents a minor geographical irony, given that South Florida is not generally considered a proving ground for cold-weather performance. Indeed, the phrase “outerwear” is rarely uttered in this latitude without irony. Still, when the occasional arctic incursion sends temperatures plummeting into the mid-30s an event that Floridians greet with existential panic the Forresters layering system proves itself admirably capable.
Their system consists of moisture-wicking base layers, breathable windwear, and fully waterproof shells employing proprietary Rainshedder® technology. Translation, stripped of marketing euphemism: it works. One of my personal favorites
remains the range hoodie minimalist, intelligently constructed, and free from the suffocating bulk that so often accompanies “technical” apparel. During a recent cold snap, pairing the mock turtleneck with the hoodie provided warmth, flexibility, and, perhaps most importantly, liberation from the Michelin Man silhouette so beloved by designers who confuse insulation with immobility.
The branding is subtle. The tailoring is deliberate. The materials are purposeful. One suspects, almost suspiciously, that actual golfers were consulted.
What distinguishes Forrester’s under Jones stewardship is not merely competence but restraint. In a golf industry saturated with hyperbole where every fabric is “revolutionary” and every zipper a minor engineering triumph Forrester’s delivers something close to heresy: clothing that does its job without announcing itself as a breakthrough. Their garments belong on windswept fairways above the Pacific, not dangling from ski lifts or parading through marketing campaigns that mistake volume for value.
And yet, just as one is tempted to conclude the matter there, Forresters has quietly extended the argument.
Entering the spring season, they have released a new lineup that may well usurp some of the initial favorites. Mercifully, it avoids the tired ritual of seasonal reinvention masquerading as progress. This is not merely a reshuffling of color palettes designed to simulate novelty. It is, instead, an expansion of function an acknowledgment that transitional conditions,
whether meteorological or architectural (and anyone who has stepped from Florida humidity into arctic air conditioning will understand the distinction), require a more nuanced approach to layering.
The most notable addition is the lightweight range hoodie, now offered in nickel, snow white, navy, and charcoal. It is, in essence, a refinement of an already excellent concept: an ultrasoft, moisture-wicking performance knit reimagined for warmer conditions. It retains the virtues of its heavier counterpart mobility, simplicity, quiet competence while shedding the unnecessary burden of weight. It is not a reinvention. It is an improvement. A distinction that, in modern product cycles, has become almost radical.
Alongside it arrives the French Terry Quarter Zip, a garment that occupies that elusive middle ground between casual and considered. One imagines Peyton Manning somewhere nodding in approval, though the comparison may be unfair to the garment.
The Windblocker Vest continues this theme of thoughtful expansion. Constructed from lightweight crinkle nylon with four-way stretch, it provides core protection without restricting movement a phrase often used and rarely delivered upon. A brushed interior mesh lining adds comfort, while a DWR finish offers resistance to light wind and moisture. The sleeveless design preserves freedom through the shoulders, making it, quite sensibly, an ideal transitional piece.
Finally, the Packable Rain Jacket a concept so often executed
poorly that one approaches it with justified skepticism delivers a rare combination of practicality and restraint. Built from stretch ripstop nylon, the same category of material used in the R-series, Trouper, Rover, and Players Series bags from Jones Golf it reflects a quiet but meaningful evolution. This recycled ripstop fabric, derived from plastic bottles, is lightweight, durable, and water-resistant, engineered not for spectacle but for use. In other words, it serves the same purpose in apparel that it does in their bags: to endure without complaint.
There is also a breathable TPU laminate, offering reliable protection in light to moderate rain without descending into the crinkled absurdity that typically accompanies “packable” designs. Fully seam-sealed with a 10K waterproof rating, it folds into its own pocket, which is less a novelty than a quiet admission that golfers occasionally prefer convenience to ceremony.
Taken together, these additions do not announce themselves as a revolution. They do something more difficult: they extend a philosophy. They suggest that clothing can be technical without being theatrical, functional without being oppressive, and modern without being enslaved to novelty.
Once again, the Jones Boys have demonstrated their rare talent for brand resurrection: honoring heritage while refusing nostalgia, embracing modernity without courting absurdity.
Photo Courtesy of Forrester’s