To be sure, other inventions have progressed more impressively than the golf shoe. Airplanes and automobiles, for instance, or the modern computer. That said, be grateful the golf boot is an extinct species.

You can thank Field and Flint for that. In 1923, the company took William Park’s patented, 1917 version of the golf boot, lopped off the top and voila – the American golf shoe was born. Not just any shoe, mind you, but the FootJoy golf shoe.

Name Ring a Bell?

Actually, golf-specific footwear dates to at least 1857, when “The Golfer’s Manual,” a Scottish publication, referred to shoes “roughed with small nails or sprigs” that enabled golfers to “march comfortably and safely over the most slippery ground that can be turned out by the meridian sun in the dog days.”

(That same year, the Burt and Packard Shoe Company was founded in Brockton, Mass. It would later become, you guessed it, Field and Flint.)

In 1891, the removable metal spike was born, to the chagrin of greenskeepers everywhere. Not to mention golfers, who sometimes felt the prongs poking through their heavy soles. Talk about a death march.

Skip forward to 1927, when Field and Flint’s FootJoy was named the official shoe of the very first U.S. Ryder Cup team, helmed by the fashionable Walter Hagen. Still, the stylish spikes of Johnston & Murphy were preferred by statement-making country clubbers in the Roaring ’20s.

In 1940, FootJoy introduced its first line of ladies shoes. Unfortunately, there was little to distinguish them from those made for men. The decade also saw the rise of FootJoy and Charles Eaton – later known as Etonic – as the leading brands among golf professionals and amateurs.

Not much happened over the coming decades, as golfers were content to wear Oxford-style shoes and manufacturers were happy to crank them out. Finally, in 1970, R&D caught up with the times and developed rubber soles for shoes – a quantum leap in comfort and flexibility. Etonic would pioneer waterproof treated leather, another important innovation, in the 1980s.

The next decade brought the golf shoe ever closer to its athletic cousins built for tennis, jogging and basketball. Breathable fabrics and lightweight polymers replaced thicker, heavier materials and made golf shoes more comfortable and durable than ever.

As the 20th century turned, the metal spike met its demise in the form of the plastic cleat — to the delight of greenskeepers everywhere. Companies that had long dominated the athletic shoe trade, like Nike and adidas, applied their existing technologies to golf shoes and made a serious dent in the market share of the entrenched manufacturers.

The increased competition sparked an explosion of innovation as companies jockeyed to make shoes ever lighter, more comfortable and – no small step – more aesthetically varied. Today, consumers can choose styles ranging from conventional saddle oxfords to golf shoes that resemble athletic models, or even sandals.

And female golfers no longer are stuck with manly footwear.

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Category: Sports
Keywords: golf shoes, golf shoe, made golf shoes, american golf shoe, footjoy golf shoe.