Bobby Jones had it, as did Payne Stewart. It is second nature for a certain vintage race car set, but definitely alien to the stock car scene. Prize fighters, out of the ring, have demonstrated a knack for it, but it's all but fallen by the wayside for the NFL coaches who walk the Sunday sidelines in cotton logoed polo shirts and baggy chinos.

Oh for the day when Lombardi and Landry looked like they had come right from church to coach those Packer and Cowboy teams of the '50s, '60s and '70s. In that day, their skinny ties weren't so different from the ones worn by Frank, Sammy and Dean. Sure, it was a different era, when a coach was to be respected if not revered. The NBA retains some sense for how a coach should look; the league has an unwritten rule requiring coaches to wear a jacket. But it seems a self-conscious effort to appeal to a certain urban working type: Go to work downtown, come by the arena. Even if you can't relate to the players' salaries, you can relate to the guy on the sideline in the suit.

But what is style if it has to be mandated by the league office? There was a day when men dressed for sport, to play it and to watch it. Think of the old footage of Bobby Thompson's home run - "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" - and look at the sea of suits and hats and trench coats erupting in the stands.

Golf, of course, still retains the sensibility that there's a certain way to dress. Jones wore a tie, Payne Stewart more recently plus fours. PGA professionals - both the gents who run golf clubs and those who tee it up on TV - still wear long pants even in the sticky season (July and August or wherever the PGA Championship is played). Tiger seems to have the style gene. He's worn some mock and turtlenecks and clearly packs the proper seasonal accouterments when he heads for the British Isles. (He should look good: his biggest sponsor is a shoe and sportswear company.)

Hey, sports fans, there are still a few settings where you're expected to dress better. The clubhouses of a thoroughbred racetrack on a Triple Crown Saturday (Churchill Downs, Pimlico, Belmont) require a jacket, to say nothing of the winner's circle. If you're going to Del Mar or Saratoga, pack your most colorful jacket (or even madras) along with your field glasses and cigars.

For the boss's luxury box on a fall Sunday afternoon, there's a way to dress to feel a little more comfortable in that rarified air. In horse and hunt country, the equestrian set can break out the tweeds and suedes with the best of them, be they north or south or the Mason-Dixon line. The polo crowd does blue blazers, which is surely required if you're going to squire a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and a Lilly Pulitzer dress.

Tennis's U.S. Open coincides nicely with the arrival of fall and the first nip of autumn night air. That means the women seated in the expensive seats can break out the finest and the men are expected to look prosperous enough.

Tennis, before its slide in popularity, had something of its own golden age of style. Rene Lacoste was a tennis player before he introduced his crocodile logoed sportswear and deserves credit for initiating the whole logo madness.

But what about the sportsman, the guy in the game? The driver in a road rally can still sport a certain elegance, scarf trailing in the wind. Orvis and Barbour have carved out niches dressing the fly fishing and hunting sets.

The competitive sailor needs a certain functionality. The Italian brand Paul & Shark was first conceived as a yachting line and it still creates great yachting clothes even as it has morphed gracefully into spirited sportswear.

And if you're under sail or the yacht measures more than 75 feet, a blue blazer is de rigueur. The buttons can even be brass, but only if it's your yacht.