This story first was published on Jan. 13, 2019.
OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA | John Ashworth says he likes to live in the moment, and at the moment I walk into the Linksoul Lab, the Oceanside building that serves as his apparel company’s headquarters, he is hunched over a table examining a couple dozen cotton shirts strewn across it. Be-bop jazz wafts out of a pair of speakers, and a dog of a probably untraceable pedigree sleeps soundly on the concrete floor. A copying machine stands next to a washer and dryer, and a vintage bicycle is parked against a wall, by a golf bag filled with persimmon woods and a set of Ben Hogan blades so worn they may well have been forged when the Hawk was still sitting at the chairman’s desk. Gazing out a window overlooking a side street, I notice an artificial turf putting green that takes up part of the sidewalk – and that is sometimes used by employees as a place to unwind. Beyond that is Linksoul’s neighbor to the south, a mortuary.
Wearing dark slacks, a long-sleeve, blue-green polo shirt and a baseball-st...