Golf Hats for Big Heads: It's Not You, It's the Crown

Let's talk about the guys who get left out of every hat conversation: the big-headed. You know who you are. You've tried on hats at the pro shop while your buddies waited, and every single one sat on top of your skull like it was afraid to commit. You've bought "one size fits all" and learned that "all" had an asterisk. You've probably decided you're just not a hat guy.

You are a hat guy. The hat industry just ignored you.

The big head problem isn't circumference. It's crown height.

Here's what nobody explains. "Big head" usually means two separate things:

• Wide head: more circumference around. This is what the sizing number on a fitted hat refers to.
• Tall head: more height from your ears to the top of your skull. No sizing number on earth accounts for this.

Most big-headed guys are some combination of both. Adjustable hats solved the wide problem decades ago. Nobody solved the tall problem, because solving it requires building hats in multiple crown heights, and that's more work than most brands feel like doing.

We did the work. It's kind of the whole company.

What a big head actually needs

A high crown. More depth from the sweatband to the top of the hat, so it sits down on your head properly instead of hovering above your ears like a UFO.

When a high crown finally sits right on a tall head, it's a whole moment. The hat looks proportional. Your face looks balanced. You stop looking like you borrowed a hat from a smaller man.

ParBird high crowns, built for exactly this:

• The High Harpy Snap: rope snapback, structured, adjustable. The big-head rope hat. If you only click one link in this article, make it this one.
• The Phoenix: our premium performance hat, high crown, lightweight and breathable. The one for August rounds when you need the fit and you need to not sweat through it.

Two things to avoid if you have a big head

Unstructured dad hats. They look roomy on the rack and then collapse into whatever shape your skull dictates, which on a tall head is "deflated balloon."

Low crown anything. Low crowns are great for the guys who find hats bulky. On a tall head they ride up and you get the perched look you've been trying to escape.

Fine, what about small heads?

Flip everything above. If hats always feel like a bucket, if the top of the crown pokes up with a bunch of empty space in it, if you've ever been told you look like a Little League coach: go low crown. The Low Harpy Snap and The Peregrine are the two we'd start with. For women, who get this treatment constantly, The Nightingale is a low crown built with a smaller fit.

And actual kids?

The Weebill is the only youth-sized hat we make. Adjustable, so it survives at least two growth spurts.

How to know for sure

We built a four-question quiz that figures out your crown before you buy anything. It's free, it takes thirty seconds, and it has never once asked anyone to measure their head with a tape. Take the Fit Finder.

And if you buy the wrong one anyway, you've got 30 days to swap it. We'd rather exchange a hat than have you go back to thinking you're not a hat guy.