I had an old cousin - cousin of my mom’s really. He was in his 60s-70s when I was a kid. Lived in an extended stay hotel in downtown Chicago. Back in the day he had been an advance man for the circuses. Definitely NOT a rich person. But when he got to a certain age, he decided he was done laundering socks and underwear. So he just bought new. Probably at whatever department or dime store was nearest. Lived extremely modestly and figured whatever income he had would cover that.
Always wore white dress shirts and suits or suit pants, which he would have laundered and dry cleaned as needed.
Do you have any idea how many sock I’ve tossed over the years simply because the elastic was shot? The fabric was otherwise in good shape, no wear or thin spots, just stretched out at the top &/or wouldn’t stay up.
Pro teams (including high level cycling - the team bus will have laundry facilities on board) have a staffer do that for the team.
My guess is that they have enough. I usually buy socks in a five or six-pack but some come in a 10-pack. Even for the high-end & specialty socks that come one to a cardboard pack the cost of giving them enough is negligible. That way they don’t have to deal with finding a laundromat / hoping the hotel machine isn’t in use / get back to the hotel early enough to get them turned overfor room service /pickup; especially if they’re staying at their own hotel rather than an event sponsor hotel.
Yeah - that was one reason why I specified individual sports as opposed to teams. I imagine for teams they use mesh laundry bags to segregate each player’s sock/undergarments.
I bet there is a line between - say - the top 125 earning golfers and those outside the top. The top guys likely get comped socks/undergarments, and consider them disposable. For those guys, I would hope the clubhouse gathers, launders, and donates them.
Whereas those lower on the list might consider doing a load of laundry worth their while.
And then there is likely a group that just figures buying a couple of 10-packs each week the best use of their time/$.
Actually, from what little I know about how the PGA tour operates, it wouldn’t surprise me if the top brands had trailers at each event that a pro could go into and just pick up a pile of socks and undergarments. A company figures if they hand out some free socks, they might encourage a player to sign an endorsement deal. And if the athlete have a shoe/clothing endorsement that provides them with shirts/pants/shoes, I could imagine Nike, FootJoy, etc supplying socks and underclothes as well.
no one is going to see unmentionables, unless there is a specific deal for them, players are going to wear what they like. Similarly, don’t most (all?) pro golfers wear long pants, which means socks aren’t visible? Unless they have an endorsement deal, & work that into their interviews, “I hit well today because of my ___ socks”. there’s not a huge point in it.
Yeah - I get that. And yes, for male golfers, long pants are required. But the major shoe/clothing manufacturers all make socks/undergarments. So I could imagine if I had a contract for shoes, they might also include socks. Or shirts/pants, include undergarments.
Just a weird thought I had the other day as I was peeling off my sweaty socks after a round, and wondering how pros handled it.
I was going to say that’s your own damned fault for having more than a couple kinds of socks.
I have ~10 pairs each of identical black dress socks, tan dress socks, invisible shorty sox, and white gym sox. Slowly but surely the supply of each kind dwindles as they wear out, stretch out, or are eaten by gremlins.
But whether I have 20 identical black dress socks, or 19, or 17, or 12, or even 8 doesn’t much matter. When the supply of any one kind gets down to ~6 socks = ~3 pair, so less than a week’s worth, then I buy 10 identical fresh pairs & pitch the survivors that may or may not match the new ones exactly.
Well, I must live in Hicksville, Nowhere County, USA because in 40 years my husband never wore a suit to anything. Dress shirt, a blazer or jacket, and dockers were as gussied up as he ever got. Sometimes a tie, and he did have leather shoes. ……When my working class uncle died and there was an afternoon wake, his work buddies came directly from the factory in their dusty overalls and flannel shirts to line up and pay their respects , and I can assure you no fashion police were checking for faux pas…….I went to a wedding in an elegant dress and gorgeous sandals (from the thrift store). My statement necklace cost more than both!…..As for the last ___ I’ll ever buy, I gave up bras 10 years ago. I refuse to shop for them, get ‘fitted’, try them on, pay $$$, and suffer wearing them (for good reasons). I bought a cheapie sports bra which I can barely tolerate when I really HAVE to corral the girls, and if that isn’t good enough, too bad.
It’s weird to see my sock drawer thru the years; particularly the dress socks. They all used to be black/blue/brown Gold Toe fuzzies but they stopped making them, so they were slowly converted over to (mostly) black base argyles, sometimes with multiple pairs of the same pattern. Now it seems that I’ve bought enough one-off fun socks that that is mostly what’s in that drawer. Usually, no one sees or notices them but I know they’re there & gives me a bit of whimsy.
Sport (running & cycling) socks were similarly multiple different pairs; for running, most were frequently the same brand/style but different colors, that way I knew which ones I had worn.
I got ya beat there. I gave up buying bras before I ever bought even my first one for me to wear. Well, there may have been a sexy lingerie purchase as a gift for her to wear (who is that gift really for, though?)
I stopped using a stick when my knees went. That’s been a couple of decades.
Lately I’ve been wondering if I should by more underwear. Every time I wonder that, I wonder how many I’d have to buy to make sure I never had to buy any more, ever.
Three inner-city boy find some cash on the ground; since no one is around who obviously dropped it they take it & split it evenly amongst themselves & run to the corner bodega.
The first one orders himself a big samm’ich with all the sides from the grill that he’s never allowed to get while the second one loads up on junk food & soda. The third one buys a box of tampons. When the other two question him as to why he’d buy tampons he tells them all of the fun stuff he’s going to do because right there on the side of the box it say you can go horseback riding & swimming &…
One thing I am 100% certain I will never buy again is a styptic pencil. For my entire life I have used my father’s styptic pencil, bought in the 60’s, maybe 50’s? It finally withered away to a fragile thin stick. I bought a new styptic pencil and considering I have been fully bearded for years and probably will be so for years, that styptic pencil will easily outlast me.
We just adopted a dog and FCD admitted it’s probably the last dog we’ll have. Had it been up to me, the last dog would have been our last, but I caved to his wishes. I’m not anti-dog. I just didn’t want to deal with one in my 70s and (until the dog dies) 80s. We’ll see how it goes.
I’ll never buy small gas-engine accessories again. I use only electric now, and I’m thrilled that I’ll never again need to futz around with carburetors, spark plugs, air filters, pull cords, ethanol-free gas, starter fluid, etc.
……When my working class uncle died and there was an afternoon wake, his work buddies came directly from the factory in their dusty overalls and flannel shirts to line up and pay their respects 
, and I can assure you no fashion police were checking for faux pas…….I went to a wedding in an elegant dress and gorgeous sandals (from the thrift store). My statement necklace cost more than both!…..As for the last ___ I’ll ever buy, I gave up bras 10 years ago. I refuse to shop for them, get ‘fitted’, try them on, pay $$$, and suffer wearing them (for good reasons). I bought a cheapie sports bra which I can barely tolerate when I really HAVE to corral the girls, and if that isn’t good enough, too bad.