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Hello, and welcome to the first of what is hopefully many installments of Interviews with a Golf Weirdo, where we explore the genuinely strange birds of golf society. Today, I bring you Tweeth Mitchell, who you might know as a great follow from our little corner of Twitter. Tweeth, who is 42 and works in medical sales in Florida, has a real name he told me I could use, but seemed only 50% enthusiastic about it, so we’ll stick to the nom de plume and get down to business. The interview has been edited for length and clarity and entertainment.
Tweeth, thanks for doing this. What makes you a golf weirdo?
I own more than 200 golf visors.
My God. What went wrong that it came to this?
Well, here’s how it started. I have great hair. That’s true. It’s a family tradition.
[Note: We were speaking on a Zoom, and I can confirm that the locks are stellar.]
And I never wore a hat because it de-ages me in a weird way, it makes me look childish. I think that’s true for a lot of adults, so I never really cared for it and I played for golf years without a hat.
But obviously there’s some functional utility to a hat. You need the sweat brim, keep the glare out of your eyes, and stuff like that. And we have a saying in the visor gang, “lettuce wilts when you cover it up.” If you have great lettuce, don’t cover it up, keep it healthy.
This all sounds like the origin story of a very normal man who goes on to own maybe three visors. But you’re not normal, are you?
Well, I had been joking about becoming a visor guy, and I tried the low crown visor and it wasn’t for me. So I had a buddy going to the 2019 PGA at Bethpage, and I asked him to get me a high-crown visor. And they had one with the famous warning sign printed all over it, and he brought it back and I thought, “maybe I’m a visor guy now.” And the course we were at that day, I bought another one, so I had two.
And from that day forward, that was the move. I never went hatless again. I made the decision, I’m going to be a visor guy, we’re going to make this happen.
Again, still no sign of the derangement to come.
A couple years ago, I had like 10 or 12 of these things. And then Laz Versalles and I were going back and forth on Twitter about those visors, he’s a visor guy too. And we’re like, hey, we’re in the gang together! And so I posted about it one day, like, “good morning, visor gang,” and I thought, this will be a bit. I’ll just do this until people are like, “you’re being weird about it.” And it’s been three years now where I can’t play golf without posting a picture, and I thought, well, I gotta have variety. I need to be picking these things up more. So over those last three years it’s grown from 12 to 200-something. I’m kind of afraid to count, but I would guess probably 225, 230.
This is the classic serial killer trajectory. You start slowly, but it takes increasingly extreme and risky behavior to get the same rush.
Right. I think I have a great disease that a lot of people have when they start collecting something, where it’s not okay to have a normal amount of it, because it becomes part of your identity. I was like this with guitars when I was a musician, where it wasn’t okay to have the two that I played at gigs, I had to have 25, I had to have 30, ones that I never even played. It’s compulsive. And visors are easy to get, they’re only $35.
Do you get a little dopamine hit every time you buy one? Is this a cloth-based drug addiction?
Of course, a hundred percent. I have ones I haven’t worn yet. I keep a stack in my office where I’m like, I have to wear these. And over the last couple years, I decided that I’m going to be so committed to variety that I’m not going to repeat one throughout the year. I played 81 rounds this year so far, and I’ve worn 81 different visors. And it almost makes me sad, because if I get a new one, I know I’m only going to wear it one time for the next several months.
As an example, I just went to Palmetto a month ago. It’s one of my favorite places on Earth, and I picked up a couple there. Hold on, I’ve got it right here … it’s an Imperial pink terry cloth Palmetto visor. And I’m so sad that I’ve already worn this and can’t wear it again until January.
Speaking of sad, I assume you’ve never had a romantic relationship?
My wife is the single greatest person alive. She’s aware of all my bullshit, so I don’t think this surprised her at all. She was with me through the guitar phase and the sneaker phase, so I think she saw it coming from a long way away. And the thing with my wife, one of the things I love about her the most is that she will steer into the bit with you no matter what the bit is. She does this with me, our kids, her friends, whatever. And man, everyone deserves a partner that’s willing to endorse their bullshit. I wish that for a lot of people.
Tweeth, that was way too wholesome, I’m trying to make fun of you here. Let’s get back to the visors. Full disclosure, I’m a low crown guy, and I have a high crown friend who insults me about it endlessly. I can’t even say what he calls me, it’s too offensive. What do you have against the low crown crew?
One of my best buddies is a low crown guy, and I beg him to switch, to come join the proper crown team. We have fights about it. Sometimes we’ll bet, and because of that this year I had to wear a low crown visor at our member-member. But the visor crew has a derogatory view of the low crown energy. It does not compliment the forehead. It doesn’t frame the face well. And when you think about the visor as part of the tradition of golf in a sort of weird, overly indulgent way—
As we must.
—the high crown visor is what occupies the tradition of at least men’s golf. And the low crown is a women’s golf thing, it’s a little sporty, it’s more like a tennis thing. Maybe a high school football coach vibe. The high crown visor is stately, it announces itself, it goes ahead of you, it’s a more fun statement to make. And it’s unique to golf, because you don’t wear high crown visors in other sports. And actually, the high crown visor precedes the low crown in golf. I’m not an expert on the history, but I do know that the first major winner you can find with someone wearing a visor is Arnold Palmer in 1960, and I think you’ve got to go to Bernhard Langer to find a low crown visor winner.
I got into it because of Ian Poulter, circa 2012, Medinah. Do you think the low crown visor in men’s golf is a European thing?
Now that you say that, all the guys I can think of that wear the low crown are European guys, so maybe that’s part of it. I’ll tell you this, when I went to Europe and played, I went to Ireland for a bit, I couldn’t find a high crown visor anywhere. They don’t sell them over there. So maybe there’s a continental divide we have to investigate.
Who are the high crown visor guys in the pros today?
Keith Mitchell, obviously. But he was a hat guy for a while, and he had to have his awakening. Bubba deserves some credit here for being the vanguard of this. You got Beau Hossler. Then you have some aspiring players, Taylor Dixon wears a visor, Matt Smith wears a visor, and there’s a renaissance happening in the college ranks right now. And I’m hopeful, because there’s far too many guys and not enough visors.
You’re very public with your visor habit. How has that worked out for you?
I used to have a rule where I wouldn’t wear one from a course I hadn’t played. But then a friend of mine played Cypress and was like, do you want a visor? Yes, absolutely I do. And since I post pictures all the time, occasionally people will reach out and say, “hey, I’m going to X place, you want me to pick one up? I need your address, I want to send one to you.” And that means a ton to me. I don’t have a bajillion followers, but I really appreciate it, and it feels good to be seen.
I always offer to pay, and no one ever lets me, and that’s just such a golf thing, right? Golf is a sport of community, and these people I don’t know in real life are reaching out. And over the last couple years I’ve made a bit out of this, but there are times when the bit becomes very earnest. And it’s so corny, I totally get that, but the parts where it bleeds into real life truly mean a lot to me. I think golf does that for a lot of people in different ways, but for me it’s through visors.
Tweeth, I’ve already warned you once about veering into wholesome territory. That’s strike two. Anyway, are there any downsides to this habit?
I post my own face every week for everyone to tee off on if they want. And I get, “you look like Ted Cruz” a lot, which I don’t. I look like fat Tony Romo. I look like Tony Romo if the only food they served in the press box was funnel cake. So I do get people teeing off on my appearance, but I’m self-confident enough to let that shit go.
You’re not that fat!
If he was sweaty and bloated from a long week in Vegas, this is what he would look like.
Speaking of followers, you’ve mentioned the “Visor Gang” once or twice. How serious is that?
This is a picture of my actual license plate:
Outrageous behavior. Okay, obvious question, what’s your favorite visor?
I think the Sugarloaf Double Seve. To me, Seve is on the Mt. Rushmore of visor-wearers, and they did such a cool tribute to his double Nike logo visor. When he first signed with Nike at the Masters, they didn’t have a visor ready for him, so they took two tags off his shirts and sewed them over a club logo on his visor. And he wore a visor with two Nike logos that were shirt tags sewed on top of each other. And Sugarloaf, a year or two ago did a tribute to that where they put two Sugarloaf logos on top of another logo, and I thought that was a really nice tribute. So I have that in all different colors, I love that. But I also love any terry cloth visor, and any visor from a course where I’ve played where it’s like God, this was a special course and a really fun day. Palmetto, Old Barnwell, Chambers Bay, those are among the favorites.
Let’s get deep with the last question. You mentioned your other collections, you used the word ‘compulsive,’ so what drives you? Where does this come from, and what does it do for you?
If there’s any part of it that has a root cause, it’s this: I grew up really, really broke. Raised by a single mother, piecing it together, paycheck to paycheck type stuff. And I think people have different responses to this, the economic insecurity of growing up that way. My wife grew up that way too, her response is like, she’s very frugal. But I have the polar opposite response, where if I’ve got a little money, I need to spend it. It doesn’t make me feel comfortable to have it.
And what I spend it on matters, it needs to be an expression of my identity. If I was a watch guy, I’d have to really steer into it, but whatever it is, what I spend money on matters because I’ve never had any extra before. So as I’ve become an adult, gainfully employed with income that I can part with, it has to be spent on something that matters to me. It should be an expression of me, even if that thing is stupid, because the bits matter. That’s what your life is made of, that’s everything. These are not the glue that holds the bricks together, these are the bricks.
That’s strike three, pal. We’re done here.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com