Soft spikes make their mark

By Patrick Jones
GolfWeb Contributor

After Fred Couples rammed home his monster 40-foot putt on No. 17 during the deciding match of the 1996 Presidents Cup, Vijay Singh lined up his own 20-footer trying to halve the hole and keep the Internationals' hopes alive. Singh struck the putt true. The ball rolled unimpeded, perfectly on line and straight into the cup. The match continued to the 18th hole. The Cup was still in question.

That, of course, is revisionist history. Singh's putt actually struck a spike mark on its way to the cup. It veered off line and allowed the U.S. to begin celebrating its victory.

The fabricated finish to the Presidents Cup--Singh sinking the putt to further heighten the drama--is a scenario that promoters of "soft" spike and spikeless golf shoes predict might have unfolded if they had their way. If all golfers wore their products, they believe, there would be no more man-made hazards on greens that would affect the outcome of important events.

The Softspikes XP Extra Performance plastic cleat

(Courtesy of Softspikes, Inc.)

There is no such one-sided answer to golf's increasingly sticky spike issue. There is not a tap-in solution. The only gimme is that there is widespread dissent over spike composition.

A grassroots uprising over the ravages of metal golf spikes has simmered for several years. It is on the verge of an all-out turf war entering 1997.

There are two sides with devout believers in this crusade to capture golfing-shoe soles.

The traditionalists (let's call them the traction faction) are on one side. They enjoy the status quo. They insist on keeping metal spikes on the bottom of their shoes. It is a product they know from experience allows them to keep a sufficient grip on the turf when swinging a golf club.

Believers in spikeless shoes or non-metal "soft" spikes--mainly of polyurethane composition--are the other camp in this cleat clash. They contend that they, too, get terrific swing traction and that their feet are more comfortable. They also boast that they can play a round without leaving behind the piranha-like trails of destruction to courses, carts, clubhouses and, in particular, greens, caused by metal spikes.

Those are the main issues and the spikeological profiles of the adversaries involved. If you have yet to reach your own conclusions, it is recommended that you first become well grounded in the matter before deciding to play footsie with either side.

Nonetheless, soft spikes and spikeless shoe alternatives left a minimal impression on the golfing industry until the last five years. As recently as 1992, their primary role was to allow winter play on frozen greens. Sales have boomed since then for tightly intertwined reasons. First, their makers began marketing them as the year-round answer for putting-surface preservation. Second, golf courses in landslide numbers have begun requiring their usage for the very same save-the-greens logic. No matter if you love them, dislike them, are undecided, or caught somewhere in the middle like most golf shoe manufacturers, metal spike substitutes appear to be here to stay.

According to Kelly Elbin, VP of Marketing for Softspikes, Inc., manufacturer of Softspikes plastic cleats, by the end of 1996 there were at least 830 courses in the U.S. that had banned the use of metal spikes. That number was up dramatically from the estimated 175 prohibitionists at the start of '96. Among the shakers to make the switch, said Elbin, were such prestigious championship sites as Oakland Hills ('96 U.S. Open), Congressional ('97 U.S. Open), Riviera, Firestone, Atlanta Athletic Club, Butler National, Muirfield Village and Southern Hills. On the international front, Valderrama, site of the 1997 Ryder Cup, is also now a member of the non-metal movement.

The Gripper cleat offers six points of contact per spike.

(Courtesy of Gripper Golf Cleats)

The trend toward soft spikes and spikeless alternatives is coming to a boil in the industry even with their slow acceptance by touring professionals. But that reluctance is changing--surprisingly fast on the Senior PGA Tour where the self-described "old guys" might be expected to be the most set in their ways.

Ray Floyd won the Senior Players Championship in July wearing the Softspikes plastic cleats. From August through November of 1996, according to Elbin, the winners of 10 Senior Tour events, including Jim Colbert, Lee Trevino, Gil Morgan, Jim Dent, Jay Sigel, Graham Marsh and Gibby Gilbert, wore his company's almost quarter-sized plastic discs throughout the tournament.

On the PGA Tour, Brad Faxon, Fred Funk and Fuzzy Zoeller have all experimented with wearing the product. Fred Couples won the most recent Skins Game wearing Softspikes. Laura Davies has won several events on the LPGA Tour wearing another alternative product, the SoftWalk "retractable" spike.

Regardless of their distinctions, there are numerous options available and they are all hot.

Allan Martin, director of marketing for Foot-Joy, said his company's spikeless golf shoe sales have soared from about "five to seven percent" of its business one year ago to "about 20 percent" entering 1997. "It will continue to grow," said Martin. "We have not seen the end of the evolution of this product. It will continue to get better and the demand will continue to increase."

Foot-Joy and other shoe manufacturers are wedged in the center of this fray without a shoehorn. The first tenet of business is to make a profit, so the golf cobblers are forced to produce products--and sometimes rhetoric--that please both sides of the spike debate.

"Our position is, we are pro-choice," said Martin. "We recommend that players and facilities make decisions that are right for their particular circumstances. For some facilities, [banning metal spikes] makes perfect sense. There is no question there is great value in the green friendliness of spikeless alternatives. There are other well-established courses where damage to greens is not a real problem. Quite frankly, there is not one solution for every player and for every golf facility in America."

MacNeill claims that its Tred-Lite II cleat offers 23% more traction than its nearest competitor.

(Courtesy of MacNeill Engineering)

Etonic's Pat O'Grady said that the move away from metal spikes "is not a controversy." He called it a "trend" and an "evolution." Etonic's spikeless alternative offerings now make up about one-fourth of its sales, an increase of almost 100 percent over the last two years.

"Golfers are demanding finely-tuned greens to putt on," said O'Grady. "The eight-millimeter metal spikes that we perfected, we now realize, can cause a lot of damage to greens. As manufacturers, we need to work through this evolution. We need to allow the golfer to choose what he wants today over what he had yesterday. There might be a slight change in traction but there is also minimal green damage."

Perhaps the most ardent supporters of the soft spike revolution are the individuals charged with course upkeep and improvement, those with titles such as superintendent and agronomist. A staunch ally of the "grass keepers" is Larry Gilhuly, director of the USGA's Western Region Green Section. Lest there be any doubt regarding his take on the subject, Gilhuly is the author of a recent opinion paper alliteratively titled: "The Metallic Mashers of Monocots: Golf Spikes!" (Monocots, of course, meaning grasses, not one-person rollaway beds.)

In his article, Gilhuly's snowballing multiplication formula begins with 11 spikes per shoe. It ends with a Carl Sagan-ish, astronomical total of over 741 million spike marks--on the greens alone--per 18-hole course per year.

"From a turf grass standpoint, there is no controversy," said Gilhuly. "Soft spikes and alternatives are easier on turf grasses. No question. From a playability standpoint, there is no controversy. You will never play on greens any better than those on courses that have banned metal spikes. For anyone to say that the greens are not any different because of soft spikes, they are obviously biased. A lot of the people who are against soft spikes have not even tried them."

"For me, it detracts from the fun of the game," said Siderowf, whose playing resume includes two British Amateur championships, a Canadian Amateur title and three stints on the U.S. Walker Cup team, one as the captain. "You go take a cut and your foot slips and you don't want to take a swing again. You are more concerned about falling down. For a high handicapper, it might not mean much, but for a low handicapper it makes a huge difference. Why would anyone who reaches a high level of proficiency in this game choose to wear spikes that make you concentrate more on not falling down than on the target?"

Siderowf does not buy into the opposition's primary argument of green enhancement.

The SoftWalk Aerospike

(Courtesy of SoftWalk)

"In my humble opinion, the soft spikes don't make the green surfaces any better," he said. "I don't mean aesthetically, I mean for putting. The word has gotten out that soft spikes make greens prettier, but if you look closely at one after it has been played on for four or five hours, you will see some very marred greens in terms of the surface.

"Soft spikes are like an epidemic. It's been a great marketing scheme," said Siderowf. "Somebody could write a great business school thesis on how the soft-spike manufacturers have been able to get the industry to buy into their beliefs."

Reflecting on the future of the spikeless alternatives, Siderowf predicted it will be only a matter of time before punitive damages make spike-mark damages seem tame. "Somebody is going to get hurt and there is going to be a lawsuit and clubs will be switching back to allowing metal spikes." Siderowf has a valid point about ultimate liability. It is a legal issue about which soft spike manufacturers have undoubtedly conferred with their attorneys. Tour Select Tred-Lite, a hard plastic spike alternative manufactured by MacNeill Engineering and distributed by Dayton Hudson, contains enough watch-your-step legal fine print on its packaging to make it sound like you are about to play 18 holes with a couple of bars of Irish Spring soap strapped to your feet. Based on the following disclaimer, one wonders why the Tred-Lite spikes were not, instead, marketed under the name Tread Lightly:

"Warning! Tour Select Golf Spikes are intended for use only on dry, flat grassy surfaces. They are not intended for use on damp or hilly surfaces, because they may not provide adequate traction on such surfaces. They are not intended for use on hard surfaces, such as concrete, ice, rocks, hardwood, marble or tile floors etc., because they are made of hard polyurethane that may cause them to slip or skate on such surfaces. Use on any of these surfaces may cause the user to slip and fall and sustain serious injuries."

Course architect Dr. Michael Hurdzan, whose firm has designed courses such as Devil's Pulpit and Devil's Paintbrush in Canada, as well as Naples National in Florida, takes a middle-of-the-cart-path approach regarding spike composition. He leaves it up to the ownership and management of the courses he constructs to make their own decisions--but his opinion is almost always sought.

"When asked [about non-metal alternatives], I usually tell them that I am in favor of them as long as they do not mandate one particular type," said Hurdzan, "and with the caveat that they think very carefully about steps, bridges and other areas of concern on the course. For instance, if the course is particularly wet or muddy or steep, [banning metal spikes] might not be the decision to make."

More and more spike decisions will be made in 1997 by courses, organizing bodies, manufacturers and players that will affect the industry's future direction on the issue. It remains to be seen which side, if either, will gain an upper hand--er, foot--in the grassroots struggle between green salvation and swing stability. Regardless of the outcome, golf can now, at least, lay claim to making its own amendment to an age-old adage. "If the shoe fits, wear it" now has the addendum: "...once you know what the spikes are made of and if they are approved by course management."

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