GREATEST: Stephen Malbon
The man bringing a high-low bent to the modern golf sphere.
Golf usually conjures images of things genteel: country clubs, slacks, drinks in the clubhouse. After all, it has mostly been the province of the elite, a sport where outsiders are greeted with a wary eye. But Erica and Stephen Malbon are working to change that. The Los Angeles-based couple are serial entrepreneurs who have started everything from magazine FRANK151 to several locations of The Now, a wellness destination—and they’re now using their well-earned streetwear cred to try and make golf a little more approachable. We caught up with Stephen recently to chat about golf, style and plenty in between.
You were born in Virginia. How did you end up in Atlanta, where you launched FRANK151?
I had a friend in Savannah, Georgia, a girl who went to college there. I knew there was an art institute in Atlanta and one in Philadelphia and Denver, too. I was kind of checking out Denver—I did that a few years, living in the mountains in Colorado, and I knew that was not what I wanted to keep doing. So basically I knew going close to where I grew up, Virginia Beach, meant that I could go to Philly or Atlanta, and I chose Atlanta.
I’m guessing we crossed paths there. I grew up in Atlanta and wrote about music for [alt-weekly] Creative Loafing in the late ’90s, before I moved to New York, and I remember seeing FRANK151 at record stores and clubs. Were you just doing it because it was something fun to do? Or were you doing it because you thought, ‘This is something that can be a real industry for me’?
It was really because my friends DJ Klever and DJ Lord, my man Keen One, Steve Young—none of those dudes knew people on the radio stations. And at the same time they had no Internet. So there was no way they were getting in Creative Loafing and there was no way they were going on Hot 97. And there was really nothing in between. I was going out a lot, partying and shit, and I was like a tape-your-posters-up type party promoter around Little Five Points, Earwax—a now-defunct record store—and then promoting, drum and bass shit at MJQ. FRANK was meant to fill that hole, I guess.
Also, my dream was to be a graphic designer for a skate company or an ad agency or something. The goal was: I could be an art director one day, but I’m never going to get hired in New York if I don’t do something first. I had an electronic pre-press class where I had to lay out a magazine. My brother was working for Ecko at the time. I started to help Ecko and was doing street team shit down there in Atlanta and would go put up stickers for Vice when Vice was just starting. I was the one putting up those stickers. And then I started doing it for my project-turned-business-turned-whatever else.
And now you’re trying to affect the fashion of golf. So often I’ll roll out of bed on a Saturday morning and go to the public course and I don’t really put a ton of thought into what I’m going to rock out there. But it feels like you are just trying to make it easier for people to be a little more thoughtful about what they wear.
Well, the design challenge of putting your golf outfit together is you’ve got to wear a belt; you’ve got to wear a polo. But then the problem is when I would go to golf stores and try to buy golf clothes, it’s totally obvious that I play golf. So you’re wearing the old fucking golf uniform. And then you go and golf, and then you go to work after and everyone is like, ‘How’d you play?’ It’s like, I don’t want anyone to know I just played. Or if I do, I want just a low-key little Titleist logo, so I might get invited to a nice country club or something. But I don’t want to walk in looking like fucking Rickie Fowler on TV. Now, Rickie dresses fine off TV, but it’s like if snowboarding only existed on TV. Shaun White in real life is a lot different than Shaun White in the Olympics, where you have basically every single snowboarder in the world wearing their Olympics outfit and not what he really wears when he snowboards with his homies, which is obviously way more relaxed than a flag around his body.
With golf, the dudes wear what the companies tell them to wear. The companies make what the department or big chains tell them will sell. That’s it. Then at the course, you’re dressed like everybody else, or they’re dressed old school—slacks, like Freddie Couples in 2001, you know?
With golf, the dudes wear what the companies tell them to wear. The companies make what the department or big chains tell them will sell. That’s it. Then at the course you’re dressed like everybody else, or they’re dressed old school— slacks, like Freddie Couples in 2001, you know?
[Laughs] Shoutout to Freddie Couples. Slacks and visors. I feel like the visor is a pretty specific golf piece of clothing. You don’t see a lot of visors except on a golf course, maybe on football coaches.
Or, like, on a New York train in the ’80s. That’s what it is to me. Visors are good. They’re fresh. And bucket hats are good, too. It’s the exact same. Buckets are in hip-hop and visors are in hip-hop and then they’re both in golf, so it’s going through gaps of time where I don’t golf and do golf.
And now you’re starting to see the sneakers move into golf, like all the Jordans or Sambas with spikes. Or like Tony Finau, who was wearing a bunch of dope Air Maxes during the Masters.
The problem is that in Tony Finau’s real life, he’s no different than you or me. When you’re wearing Air Maxes, those 1s or [Air Jordan] 3s or whatever the hell he was wearing, they’re dope. But in real life, you don’t want to wear them with gray slacks. Maybe you wear them with basketball shorts, running shorts, maybe some sweatpants, but it’s not going to be slacks. And so that creates issues at the course and the country clubs, where the old golf rules are making it weird. Because Nike can bend the rules by making Air Maxes and getting them on the golf course. But the department store thinks people only want to golf in golf pants, which is fucking the furthest from the truth I’ve ever heard.
And that’s at the big bourgeois clubs. If you go to a municipal course where it doesn’t matter, then wear the Air Maxes and some fucking basketball shorts and have fun and take it easy. So that’s kind of all interesting stuff, but my style is just trying to wear what I would wear all day long and be able to golf, too, because I try to golf every day. Those Air Maxes are great because I can wear them all day and then I can golf in them, I can work in them, I can go to dinner in them, and I wake up in the morning and they’re right by my bed. That’s nice, you know?
For sure. I’ve seen some famous names thrown around people that you’ve gotten out on the golf course. Do people that have never played take to it pretty quickly when you bring them out there?
There’s a wall where people don’t really want to do it. It’s the same reason I really didn’t want anyone to know I did it for years when I lived in New York, and playing golf was like the furthest from punk rock or cool that I could ever think of. But the good thing is that people do get older. Getting people to do it younger is the biggest challenge. So even, like, Jerry Lorenzo—he’s on it, he’s coming. It’s little steps, but he’s on his way. His brother plays golf, his dad plays golf. It’s like they’re all looking at him like, ‘When are you going to fucking wise up, boy? Come get in the game.’ You know Don C., I get him in here.
Getting people to play can be a challenge, but everyone sucks anyway, so don’t be scared to try. Just figure it out enough. Know where to stand, learn a little etiquette, know to take your hat off when you go in the clubhouse, don’t bitch about it. And other than that, all you’ve got to do is act decent when you’re around the clubhouse. And as soon as you get out on the second hole, you’ll have the fucking time of your life, listening to music, fucking drinking, smoking. Or I’m exercising as I walk and drinking juice and being spiritual in the morning with the sun coming up. It’s like, this is fucking great, just to get a little break.
...My style is just trying to wear what I would wear all day long and be able to golf, too, because I try to golf every day.
Stephen Malbon
I know you and your wife started Malbon Golf together, and you do a lot of things together on the business side. But to be honest, one of the reasons I like to play golf is to get away from my family and have four hours with my buddies or by myself every once in a while. How do you balance the two?
Well, she doesn’t golf all the time. And then you can only play with four people at a time. But on the other side of that, yes, I totally understand. I get it. Why are there 18 holes in golf? Because that’s how many shots of whiskey a man could take before he fell the fuck out. You’re doing a shot a hole in the rain, in the wind, and it’s like, how can we make something so long and so hard that we’d be allowed to do it every day and it will exhaust us so we can come home and just fucking pass out. That’s pretty much why they invented it, right?
So when are we golfing?
Oh, man, I’d love to play, but I’m in Memphis right now. I love what you guys are doing. As a golfer, I’m glad somebody’s trying to make cool stuff for golfers.
It’s a good challenge, you know. It’s like golf: It’s going to be hard to get really good. I just keep playing it along, buddy. Get out there on the course when you can.
Interview by Lang Whitaker
Photography by Alan Lear