AC Milan’s Golf Collection Isn’t Jumping on a Trend - It’s a Cultural Confirmation
With a sleek new drop from PUMA Golf, Milan taps into a truth the sport has known for years: footballers have always belonged on the course.
AC Milan, one of Europe’s most stylish and storied football (soccer) clubs, just dropped a golf capsule with PUMA, and it’s genuinely sharp. It’s sleek, understated, and rooted in performance, but there’s something else going on here.
This isn’t just Milan selling some golf gear because the sport is culturally relevant (not completely). This is cultural confirmation.
Footballers have been avid golfers for decades; it’s been a part of football culture since I can remember. Whether professionals or amateurs are often better than you might think. The AC Milan x PUMA collection is just the first time a major European club has packaged that connection into a fashion-forward, commercially viable play. And it lands because the link was always there. Quiet, but constant.
Christian Pulisic, the face of the campaign and a known golf obsessive, summed it up like this:
“Golf has always been one of my biggest passions outside of football, so bringing those two sides of my world together through this collection has been truly special.”
He’s not alone. Gareth Bale built his post-football identity around the game. Haaland’s already on the simulator circuit. From Joe Hart to Andriy Shevchenko, there’s a long line of elite players who’d give your scratch mates a run for their money.
But this goes deeper than one or two examples. Since the ‘90s, I’ve watched footballers quietly dominate summer golf days, charity scrambles, and off-season tourneys. Teams would finish training, then head straight to the local course. Footballers organise their own stroke play competitions, buy fittings like Tour pros, and travel with their own TrackMan setups. It’s not a hobby. It’s a second sport.
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So why has it taken this long for clubs to lean into it?
AC Milan, to their credit, got it. This new golf drop is the launch of Clubhouse, the club’s new culture and lifestyle platform, a space where football intersects with fashion, design, music, and yes, golf. The name Clubhouse is a clever wink to both sports: the inner sanctum of a football team and the communal heart of every course on earth. That wasn’t an accident.
The collection’s aesthetic is also spot-on. No forced fashion statements, just wearable, functional, well-cut pieces with subtle nods to Milan’s black-and-red DNA. You could wear it to a links round in St Andrews or a late lunch in Milan’s Brera district and feel right at home in either. It’s golfwear that respects the rhythm of the modern player, with both the swing and the swagger.
But here’s where the move hits: it’s not just for football fans. It’s for golfers. Real ones. Milan’s not trying to enter the golf world with a celebrity gimmick. They’re stepping in with credibility, and that matters.
Because the truth is, golf is no longer content being boxed into tradition. The game has moved. It’s entered the lifestyle era, where culture drives just as much conversation as competition. You see it with Eastside Golf’s Jordan drops. With Malbon’s expansion into Seoul and Paris. With Topgolf’s takeover of social sport. Golf now sits at the intersection of sport, self-expression, and social identity, and footballers have been sitting there too, for a long time.
Historically, AC Milan has always had range. They were founded in 1899 as a football and cricket club, blending codes before that was cool. They’ve collaborated with fashion labels, dabbled in music, and been photographed as much off the pitch as on it. But this feels different. This is a global club saying, “golf is part of who we are now”, not just as a sport, but as a culture.
And it’s not hard to imagine where this goes next. PSG with Jordan Golf. Real Madrid with an exclusive adidas capsule. Premier League players fronting their own collections. Footballers don’t need to be convinced, many of them already carry a 5-iron and a 5 handicap. Now, it’s just about turning that culture into product, into community, into brand value.
That’s what this Milan x PUMA Golf drop signals. Not a pivot, but a long-overdue acknowledgement. Golf isn’t just having a moment; it’s a movement with an updated engine. And if footballers are already part of that movement, it’s only natural that clubs start showing up too.
Thanks for reading, David Skilling.
The full AC Milan x PUMA collection is available now in all AC Milan Official Stores (excluding the Milan Store at Malpensa T1), on store.acmilan.com, on pumagolf.com.
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