Remember when brand new leather golf shoes and baseball gloves felt like stiff Medieval armor and took months of blisters and dropped fly balls to break in?
We will let baseball mavens figure out their glove evolution, but in golf some credit Fred Couples for championing the hip and cool, comfortable leather golf shoe when, in 2010, he wore the hybrid spikeless ECCO GOLF STREET en route to a stunning 6th place finish at the Masters that kicked off unprecedented demand for that shoe.
Today, if you run into an ECCO-shod golfer, you are likely to hear an evangelical spiel about how the shoes are truly comfortable straight out of the box and you sacrifice nothing in stability or wear. That would be me. All true. I’ve worn ECCOs as long as Freddie and I can’t imagine using another shoe.
On my most recent trips to Ireland and Iceland, we had rain of some duration on five days, not the sideways gales that soak your socks, but steady bouts. I had new ECCO BIOM C5s, which are waterproofed with GORE-TEX fabric, a breathable membrane that the company says “keeps liquid water out while allowing water vapor from sweat to escape…for 360-degree breathability.” (Why is any golf shoe not waterproof?)
They did their job admirably and as with every pair of ECCOs I’ve owned, they fit my wide feet better than any other “regular” width, American market golf shoe. One of their Danish engineers told me long ago that this “wider fit” reputation ECCO has developed comes from their designing a deliberately wider “last” – that’s the foot-shaped mold around which a shoe is built – for the shoes that people will actually walk in for hours at a time (like golf) as opposed to casual or dress shoes. A logical European approach.
The only speed bump in my ECCO love affair is that, like other brands, ECCO has become infatuated with the spikeless shoe, the type with permanently-molded, sharp plastic outsoles, rather than the “soft” spikes that you fasten onto the bottom of the shoe. They will say it’s all about comfort and being able to walk straight from the course to a golf club dining room without having to change your shoes. A game argument.
But I have another idea. Shoe companies like to sell lots of shoes.
As you may have noticed, with the modern spikeless shoes, those hard-plastic, diamond-studded outsoles wear down after a year or two of walking on parking lots and cart paths, decreasing a grip that was probably never going to equal that of traditional soft spikes. Yet, after two years, the rest of your ECCOs – like the heel, collar, vamp and midsole – will still be in great shape and could last years longer.
You are torn. The shoes feel great. You now wear them to weddings and bed. But on the golf course, in the middle of your full shoulder turn, your feet are occasionally slipping.
So, reluctantly, you buy new shoes. Those clever Danes.
But fear not, ECCO promises they are still committed to the spiked shoe and will have a new model in 2027.
Darn Tough: Socks for the Long Walk
Perhaps even more important than your shoes, especially when you’re climbing over damp Irish dunes for four hours, are your socks. Bad socks (think cotton) can stay damp all day long, sag around your ankles, stink and cause blisters.
I found the solution about 20 years ago, maybe in an REI store, when I tried on some Merino wool hiking socks by Darn Tough, a proud Vermont brand launched in 2004 that has kept its mills U.S.-based through recessions and plunging garment markets fleeing overseas.
The not-so-secret is Merino wool, which comes from the high-elevation areas of New Zealand and Australia where the namesake sheep run wild. Coveted for its durability and moisture-wicking properties, Darn Tough calls Merino “the world’s most versatile performance fabric.” Under a microscope, its fibers measure half as thick as human hairs but are twice as resilient, capable of being twisted up to 20,000 times without breaking. Its super power is the ability to stretch, due to natural crimps in its fibers. These folds coil together to create an elastic-like core that snaps back into place during and after rigorous activity. Unlike the scratchy wool in days of yore, Merino is smooth and silky enough that some companies use it to make thermal undergarments.
Better still, the Merino wool socks are warm in winter and stay relatively cool and dry in the hottest humid climates, yet, incredibly, do not smell like a pig sty when you take them off. How, you ask? Wool is uniquely odor-resistant, and its chemical structure stops sweat and bacteria build-up. If that doesn’t wow you, consider the Darn Tough lifetime guarantee. If the socks ever tear, wear out, refuse to fit or are inadvertently damaged (dogs included), the company will replace them free of charge, assuming you’re not running some international socks scam.
If I have any complaint about these marvelous socks, it is that I wish some of the “male” socks came in more vibrant colors, bold lemon yellows, Carolina blues and watermelon reds, and looked a little less utilitarian gray and ready for church brown. Nevertheless, they are as indispensable to my golf gear collection as headcovers and water bottles.