Golfers are getting into the swing of fashion.

No longer are most men wearing traditional golf shirts with their cardboard-like collars and uneven engineered stripes that cut across their middles. Now they're teeing off in soft-collared shirts with stylish prints. Horizontal stripes have been replaced by everything from wavy island designs borrowed from surf wear to funky geometric graphics.

Color has also been a major handicap of golf shirts. Golfers used to wear primarily red, white and blue and that awful shade of golf green. In recent years, golfers have switched to shirts in fashion-forward shades such as teal, taupe and purple.

Men are also wearing their golf shirts bigger. The sleeves are longer, the shoulders wider, making the shirts more comfortable for wielding a club. Ribbed-knit collars are rapidly making the stiff collars of the past obsolete.

"Golfers don't look like golfers anymore," says Roberta Quinlan, merchandise coordinator and fashion buyer for the pro shop at Pelican Hill Golf Club in Corona del Mar.

"In years past if a golfer stopped at a gas station (on the way to the course), you knew he was a golfer. They had a reputation for bad fashion, with their lime green polyesters. That was a hideous phase," Quinlan says. "Now you can't tell golfers from anyone else. They have a younger, much more updated look."

The makers of golf shirts began changing their stripes several years ago.

Innovators such as the hot-selling Ashworth started luring younger golfers with oversized polo-style shirts in solid colors and prints not seen before on golf courses. Now everyone from top-of-the-line Bobby Jones to lower-priced manufacturers make golf shirts that don't look like golf shirts.

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Among the more sophisticated styles for golfers are Bobby Jones shirts made of fine cotton and often printed with subtle geometric graphics (about $100). One style at Pelican Hill features abstract splashes of burnt orange against a tiny dark green and black checkered background ($110).

Descente, another maker of style-conscious golf shirts, created a color-blocked shirt in muted tones of mauve, blue, cream and green ($81) that can be worn anywhere.

"Guys don't want a golf look," says Jim Ireland, Southern California sales representative for Descente. "They want to be able to go out to dinner and not look like they just stepped off a golf course."