Adidas Samba Golf Shoes

Adidas Samba Golf Shoes: Raise your hand if you know what Adidas Samba shoes are. To those of you with your hands up, congrats on being at least semi-conscious for most of your life. To those of you who have not raised your hand, I’m guessing you don’t know who Kim Kardashian is either, which is downright criminal. The fact is, the Adidas Samba is one the most iconic shoes in history, alongside the Converse All-Star and the Nike Air Jordan (sorry Doc Marten, a solid 90’s run does not an icon make). Born with soccer DNA, Sambas quickly went mainstream, and even through times when they’re not necessarily the hottest shoe out there, they can always be found out and about.

Need I say more?

Well folks, Adidas bought Taylor Made a while back and got serious about golf, so guess what . . . behold the Adidas SAMBA golf shoe.

I guess I’ll go ahead and let the cat out of the bag now – these things are awesome. I don’t even know where to begin, except to say that the following review, as always, is just one guy’s take on where Sambas fit into the spectrum, so please don’t be upset if your stylish shoes happen to catch some of the shrapnel.

A few years back the golf shoe industry finally started adding some new concepts to the traditional line of the ol’ Foot Joy look . . . problem was, for some reason they thought people wanted their golf shoes to look like running or basketball shoes. Not cool running or basketball shoes, mind you, but shoes that you would wear to work at a nursing home or bagging groceries. If you don’t know the type, just take a look at what my boy Tiger wears 3 out of 4 days (sigh). There was a weird timeframe a while back when a few of my buddies started showing up to courses with these behemoths on, and I could never get a read on what was up: did they just get a really bad Xmas gift from their father-in-law, had they recently incurred some mild form of head trauma, or were they just suffering through a sudden flare-up of the gout?

Okay, then in 2011 the clouds opened up and we suddenly had a whole new wave of “alternative” golf shoes – nice! Companies started coming out with a cooler version of golf shoes, and in theory I was right on board. The problem for me, however, was that still none of these offerings really put the whole package together. They didn’t look like boring golf shoes, but they also didn’t really look like legitimate cool shoes either; maybe they didn’t have the athletic slant I’d like to see, they often took on more of a “skater shoe” look, which is not my speed. Some of them seemed to struggle with keeping the soles under 2 inches thick, which puts my brain right back to nursing shoes. Others kept the sole nice and thin, but as I’m told, lacked in comfort as a result. And finally, as anti-establishment as I may sound at times (in a really lame golf-y way, of course), I have to ask – when did we decide that standard soft-spikes were no longer king? A lot of the new shoes went with different little nubs that supposedly grip the turf just as well as spikes, something I still haven’t completely signed off on yet.

Then came my pair of Adidas Samba golf shoes. Simply put, they look like normal shoes with spikes attached . . . finally someone figured it out! They have the same low lines as a standard Samba, which makes you wonder how much cushion they can actually provide. To that point . . .

I have what my podiatrist calls “the feet of a 76 year-old overweight marathon runner with bad feet”. At least once every summer someone at the beach will look over and exclaim “what . . . how do you buy shoes?”, and I can’t stand on the concrete floors of a Lowe’s or Home Depot for more than 20 minutes without putting a significant negative spin on my day. So unlike most of my golf purchasing habits, I’ve always been willing to buck up and pop for the nicest pair of golf shoes out there, or at least the second-nicest (I’m not P. Diddy for crying out loud). And those high end traditional shoes usually did the trick – I was never in pain at the end of a round, unless maybe I walked a long 18. Anyway, enough of the build up, these Sambas are the most comfortable golf shoes I’ve worn to date. They don’t feel like golf shoes, they just feel like good sneakers. Good sneakers that look a bit more stylish than the standard, look athletic and not clunky, and still have soft-spikes that are actually spikes.

If you can’t tell, I’m a fan of these buggers. I guess it all makes sense – Adidas has been excelling at making shoes for the better part of a century . . . perhaps they decided it was time to show the golf industry how it’s done.

NOTE: The only issue I have with the Samba shoes are that they are not water proof so if you play a lot of rounds in the morning with heavy dew, this will be an issue.

You can learn more about the Adidas Samba golf shoes on their website and see high res pictures on our Facebook gallery.