I shall see your Sun Mountain and raise you a SunIce!

My cyber friend Kiel professes his respect and enthusiasm for Sun Mountain outerwear in a recent blog entry. I, too, have much respect for the Idaho company that began the golf outerwear renaissance stateside, but I also look north to America’s Hat (or, as they like to call us, Canada’s jock) for additional inspiration in Sunice.

I have two pieces from their 2008 collection that I presently sport on all sorts of days, in all sorts of weather. I have a model 2117 ultimate gore-tex jacket from the Hurricane collection

and a 2118 Carnegie pullover.

In case you’re wondering about the fitness of this pair of jackets for weather situations, I would like to ask your time to read these three testimonials:

You may have seen the dozen inches of snow that dropped on western New York yesterday (12-19-2008). All school districts closed and, for Buffalo, that is truly saying something. Back to those 12 inches…I shoveled all of them! Our snow blower passed on two years back and since then, it has been me and my trusty plastic spade. The plow driver honked and waved as he piled an additional six inches of ice and snow at the foot of the driveway…my point? I did all the work in the 2117 and 2118 layered, with the wind blowing up and down the street.

On Thanksgiving Day, I ran five miles down Buffalo’s Delaware Avenue in the 113th annual Turkey Trot. This TT is the longest-running road race in the USA. At my side was former Nichols School X-C runner Anthony Montesano, ensuring a brisk pace to equal the brisk conditions (38 degrees in the sun.) The 2117 served as my buffer against the wind and cold and performed marvelously. My torso never once cried out for want of warmth, so balanced was the temperature. I’m signed up for the Shamrock Run in late February and have my outfit ready to go.

In early November, I embarked on what would be my final 18 of 2008 in NY at the fashionable Glen Oak golf club in delightful Amherst, NY. It was a wet day, yet my game was never distracted from its purpose. Reason? Simple, but you’ve already guessed it. The tandem of 2117 and 2118 (like Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2) saved my other layers from a soaking. I was able to repair to the 19th hole in comfort.