Nike F1 Impact Golf Shoes

I haven’t worn traditional spikes to play golf in years, and that’s not the chorus of the song. The fact is, I don’t ever plan on wearing traditional golf shoes ever again, and shoes like the Nike FI Impact are strong cases for the reason why. For those of you with short attentions spans, I am gonna spill the beans and say that these shoes have truly impressed me on several levels.

While much of the credit for the popularization of soft spike golf shoes goes to Fred Couples, you can actually trace some of the history through the NFL. Growing up, I came from a football family where it was the sport of choice for me and my brothers (and my father’s profession). Back in the 70’s when NFL teams were moving to turf, players like my dad were also making the transition to non-spiked shoes. In fact, my dad had a pair of one of the very first turf shoes ever developed. When I was old enough to play on turf in high school, he let me break out his pair, and I never looked back to traditional cleats again. So for me, soft spiked golf shoes seem to be the obvious choice.

Once I started playing golf in my 20s, I enjoyed the grip of cleats, but didn’t enjoy the hardness and unevenness of walking in them or the styles of the golf shoes that were the norm. My hips, feet and back were taking a beating as well. Fortunately, with the well-chronicled shoe revolution we now have quite a few great choices.

For this particular golf shoe, Nike brought in Suzann Pettersen to help design the F1 Impact. Suzann drew from her 8 years studying shoeless running, and working with the Stanford golf team. Nike learned that Stanford players were practicing barefoot, following in the footsteps of pros like Sam Snead and Rocco Mediate, who have long-extolled the virtues of feeling the ground with your bare feet during your swing.

The Nike FI Impact Golf Shoes truly wrap around my foot and fit like a glove and with the way the low-profile sole works with the ground, they give tremendous feel through the motion of the foot as it pushes off the ground in the swing. There are no cleats on shoe, but when hitting off of wet, dewy grass I was amazed at how much the nubs gave me a solid grip; and yet they felt like running shoes when walking on pavement.

The facts that these shoes are water-proof, exceptionally comfortable, lightweight, highly breatheable (due to the mesh upper), and exceptionally dynamic (due to soft ‘finger’s through the arch area that keep the uppers connected to the sole during the movement of your foot) make them a great value at $130.

They come in four color combinations, including grey and blue besides the ever-popular white and black. I have been trying the blue, and although they were a little bright for my taste when I first looked down to swing, I noticed that it made it very easy to check my setup and foot position with barely a glance.

If you’ve tried ‘barefoot’ running shoes or ever played golf barefooted, or even longed to, you should give these a try. They give you many of the benefits of your bare feet, with plenty of helpful options to go along with it.

You can learn more about the Nike F1 Impact golf shoe on the Nike Golf Website.