What’s true is that you don’t really know how heavy your current golf shoes are until you’ve worn a pair of the True Linkswear Stealth shoes for the first time.
The Stealth, like the earlier True Tour model before them, is based on the evermore popular minimalist or barefoot running philosophy. That philosophy—that the human body, and particularly the legs, hips and back, were designed to run barefoot, and that walking, running or even golfing with a tall cushiony heel and motion-controlling midsole can be counterproductive to performance at best and possibly even detrimental to your physiological health—is the foundation of True Linkswear.
It all started when True Linkswear CEO Sean Edison noticed a golfer wearing a pair of the Vibram Five Finger barefoot running shoes on a Dallas golf course. Wanting to meld the benefits of the Five Finger design with more golf-specific features (traction control and waterproofing among them), Edison set about to create the True Tour.
The result: A lightweight, minimalist golf shoe that raises the golfer just 10 millimeters from the turf. But True Linkswear wasn’t done there.“I don’t know if golf consumers were initially ready to wear something just two millimeters off the ground, so it’s good that we started where we did,” says True Linskwear president Robb Rigg. “But now, golfers are more aware of the benefits of this shoe, and so going forward we’ll continue to move closer to the ground together.”
Building on an exceptional response to the Tour model, True Linkswear expects the more refined Stealth to only raise their level of success. “We made the Stealth a little flatter,” Rigg says, “but internally it’s similar in terms of fit. We also used a higher quality of leather, with a more classic styling.”
True is also looking to add a lower price point shoe to the lineup, as well as a women’s version in 2012. And while the Tour and Stealth versions have exceeded the company’s initial design ambitions, Rigg and Edison aren’t going to slow down their innovation anytime soon either.
“We think spikeless shoes will be 50 percent of the golf shoe market in a few years,” Rigg says, “And our ultimate long-term goal is to get as close to an authentic barefoot golf experience as possible, so we’re working on creating an even better outsole with better traction, with ideas for winter and summer versions in the pipeline as well.”
On the course, it’s not that traction is at all a problem with the current Stealth model. In fact, Ryan Moore has been wearing True Linkswear shoes on the PGA Tour all season.Moore was so impressed with the design, comfort, fit and performance of the shoe that he even acquired partial ownership of the company.
Moore isn’t the only professional golfer taking notice of the minimalist movement either. When Tiger Woods returned to golf this summer at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in August, he was sporting a pair of prototype Nike Free minimalist golf shoes.
Still, Rigg doesn’t see the big golf shoe brands as threats to True’s success. “The big shoemakers have sold the idea of adding motion control technology into their shoes for 40 years, so it’s going to be challenging for them to abandon that and switch over to a true minimalist design.”
To do so would require them to remove that motion controlling midsole altogether and widen the toe box so the toes can spread out a little and balance the rest of the body through the swing better. There’s no room for screwin cleats either, and no place for a raised heel.
That’s how you get a golf shoe weighing in at less than 12 ounces. And that’s how True Linkswear plans to create "the footwear of the future."