Lenses

The Best Lens Colors for Golf [For Every Environment]

You may have noticed that pro golfers often wear sunglasses on the golf course. This practice is more than just a fashion statement. Sunglasses protect you from painful glare and harmful UV rays.

However, the best golfers have another trick up their sleeves – their sunglasses. The best golf sunglasses help you with your game, including sharpening depth perception and improving color differentiation.

Read on to find out how you, too, can enjoy the same benefits as the pros. The secret is all in the lens color. Now let’s get a rundown of the best lens colors for golf.

The Best Lens Colors For Golf

Rose 

Rose is a great lens color for heightening contrast on the putting green and course. Your eyes will be saturated with the color green when attempting to line up a putt. And rose lenses help highlight yellow and red hues, allowing you to see the contours of the putting surface. You’ll also be able to read the breaks and grains better.

Rose lenses are most effective in low-to-medium light like overcast and partly cloudy weather due to their generally lighter tint.

Red / Amber

Red lenses share similar qualities with rose lenses. However, red is perfect for enhancing contrast in medium to bright environments like a sunny day. Similarly, amber lenses work great in cloudy, foggy, or sunny conditions. Amber is also excellent for enhancing contrast, so the golf ball pops against the green grass. Lastly, amber is ideal for improving visual acuity.

We recommend red or amber lenses for partly cloudy to sunny conditions where you want high contrast.

On the downside, you may have a harder time reading the green due to color distortion with red lenses. But you can overcome this hurdle by purchasing frames with interchangeable lenses for different golfing conditions.

Brown

Brown lenses are arguably the best lens color for golf sunglasses. That’s because this color is great at reducing glare and preventing eye strain in sunny conditions. Brown lenses are also versatile. They work just as well for tacking the golf ball against a blue sky or reading the greens.

Additionally, the brown tint is also clean and warm. This quality allows a variety of golf course colors (think green, brown, yellow, and more) to pop. And they also sharpen contrast and blocks blue light while on the golf course. As a result, the white ball becomes more vivid against the blue or hazy sky, sand, or fairway.

Lastly, brown lenses won’t distort colors, making them a great color choice for most outdoor conditions.

Best Golf Lens Color Comparison

Best Golf Lens Brands

Look on any PGA tour event, and you’ll see two eyewear brands generally dominate the course. And they offer golf-specific lenses too. We’ve highlighted these best golf lens brands below:

Oakley Prizm Golf

Oakley Prizm lenses provide color and contrast-enhancing tuned for specific environments. And with Oakley Prizm Golf and Dark Golf lenses, this technology is now available for the course.

Available in two colors, these lenses are designed to spot hazards, read greens, and easily spot your ball. Plus, they’re available as prescription lenses through Oakley or your local eye doctor.

While both lenses generally work well for any conditions, Prizm Dark Golf works best in very sunny environments, while Prizm Golf is an all-around lens designed for medium-to-bright light. Read more in our Oakley Prizm Golf 18-Hole Review.

Oakley Prizm Golf Comparison

Nike Course Tint

Similar to Oakley, Nike offers a golf-specific lens named Course Tint. Nike Course Tint is a golf lens designed to block sunlight, highlight landscapes, and enhance contours outdoors.

Course tint is a versatile lens that works great in partly cloudy and sunny conditions.

Standard vs. Contrast-Enhancing vs. Polarized Golf Lenses?

Golf sunglasses today are typically available with 3 options:

But which is best for you? Our quick guide below reviews the differences between each of these lenses.

Standard lenses help protect against harmful UV rays and eyestrain. But, standard lenses don’t have qualities like improved depth perception, color enhancement, or clarity that can boost your game.

Polarized lenses are designed to protect against glare with superior protection than standard lenses. This glare protection is useful when swinging by the water or sand traps. But Polarized lenses can distort your vision and depth perception. (Read more in our Polarized Golf Sunglasses Pros and Cons guide).

Since these lenses remove the glare that experienced golfers use to calculate the lay of the grain, they aren’t a good choice for reading the green.

Contrast-enhancing lenses are designed to highlight the environment around you and contrast the green golf course making it easier to read greens and terrain. This makes contrast-enhancing lenses the best option for golf. We recommend contrast-enhancing lenses such as Oakley Prizm Golf Lenses or Nike Course Tint.

Are Blue and Green Lenses Good For Golf? 

No, blue and green lenses are not good for the golf course because they can cause color distortion and don’t provide contrast-enhancing. In addition, while blue lenses may offer a dark tint, they won’t contrast the sky, making it harder to spot your tee shots.

Similarly, green lenses effectively block excess sunlight on a bright day but will make it hard to read greens and spot your ball in the grass. So instead of blue or green lenses, we’d recommend rose, amber, or brown color lenses for golf.

Best Lens Colors for Golf

What to Look for in Golf Sunglasses?

Choosing the right lens color is great, but you also need the frame to match. So here is a quick rundown of the frame specifications we’d recommend looking for in a good pair of golfing shades:

Weight – A comfortable pair of sunglasses needs to be lightweight. Most brands offer nylon plastic frames that are durable and comfortable, like Oakley O Matter. These frames are sweat-resistant and less prone to breaking than traditional metal sunglasses.

Grip – You certainly don’t want your sunglasses sliding off your temples and face on a hot sunny day. Make sure your golf sunglasses feature rubber grips on the temples and around the nose to keep your sunglasses on your face.

Have a Question?

Want to know more about the best lens colors for golf? Or have a question about your sunglasses? Let us know in the comments below!

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