I remember my grandfather’s golf shoes with a slight shudder. They were ratty leather wingtips and saddle-shoes with cardboard-thin and dangerously slick leather soles. They were always damp, inside and out, and after even nine holes, he’d complain of blisters and sore feet. The metal spikes would press up through the flimsy soles and create tiny bruises on his heels and the balls of his feet.

Poor guy. I could never understand why anyone would choose to golf in implements of torture rather than in comfy tennis shoes, as I did.

Thank the golf gods that shoe technology has kept pace with club technology! Just yesterday, I slipped on a new pair of Ecco Casual Cool Hydromax (MSRP $150) for the first time, and was duly impressed by both the comfort and the styling.

Grandpa would have loved the comfort, but not the look, which has Euro-chic all over it. My pair is the espresso-espresso color combination, and even my wife, who looks askance at most golf fashion, remarked how very cool these are. I am seriously considering popping out the spikes after a round and wearing them as casual street shoes. (See the link above and scroll down for a photo.)

Even Footjoy, long a bastion of golf footwear tradition, has come out with a style that makes you think dance club almost as much as you think golf club. Footjoy’s Impulse (MSRP $125) is constructed without an insole board, like many running shoes, substantially increasing flexibility.

I know, I know. Even the traditional wingtips and saddle-shoes are much more comfortable than they used to be, and any show worth its salt is waterproof for at least two years. All the more reason to wish my grandpa were still around to walk a dewy early-morning nine with me. His poor old dogs could finally stop barking.

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