Something aboutMad Men, the stylish and stylized AMC hit series about denizens of the Madison Avenue ad bizcirca1960, has me thinking about belt buckles.

Yes, it’s come to this.

Buckles, the precious piece of real estate due south of navel and due north of fly, are among the hottest properties in the golf biz. Now that the likes of Anthony ("Big Buckle") Kim, Rory Sabbatini and Camilo Villegas have brought attention to them, it seems the marketers can’t and won’t be far behind.

And why wouldn’t they? AK made almost as much of a statement with his buckles as with his golf clubs this summer. Woody Hochswender offers a timely fashion summary in this month’sGolf Magazine.

In his first and second wins, including at The TOUR Championship, Villegas has sported a buckle with the Red Bull logo. It is commercial all right, but so is Camilo, who, with endorsements from Colombian Coffee and the metabolism-enhancing Red Bull, apparently is the world’s most caffeinated golfer. (Who knew caffeine went so well with a steady hand on the putter?) When he wins next, as he seems likely to do soon, he need not rattle off all the companies that stood by him in the lean years. The golf-viewing public might not be the brightest, but he can assume most of us can read.

It’s a fine point, but through The Masters in April of this year, Camilo was wearing the J.Lindeberg "JL" belt. The "JL" buckle, clean and sleek, is everything that a Red Bull battle shield is not. Asked about this change, designer Johan Lindeberg, who has provided clothes to Villegas since before his rookie season, diplomatically and wistfully replied: "Yes, Camilo is wearing the Red Bull belt. I am proud of having created the logo belt trend in golf."

Anyway, back to the buckle-as-billboard trend, which we might file under "for better or worse." I can see this might be very big, a next great display advertising frontier, following loosely (over the decades) the chest, the visor, the left and right sleeves. A dozen years from now, when AK has notched a major or three, has moved well into the double digits in Tour victories, he’s going to have his own event. And the prize, of course, would be a belt. Not just any belt, but a belt right out of Don King’s imagination. A belt that says "champion," with a buckle that weighs three pounds. — Robert Lohrer