Equipment
Adidas’ new Tour360 golf shoes have Dustin Johnson’s fingerprints all over them
Dustin Johnson, currently the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, wasn’t in Adidas Golf’s R&D room sketching Tour360 silhouettes or mixing up thermoplastic urethanes with scientists in the lab, but he did have a major influence on the company’s new Tour360 golf shoes.
The new Tour360s are being somewhat touted as Johnson’s “signature shoe” by Adidas representatives, and according to Masun Denison, Director of Footwear at Adidas Golf, Johnson’s simple instructions played a significant role in their development. When asked what he wanted to be different about the new Tour360s versus the Tour360 Boost shoes that they replace, Johnson put the reigns on Denison.
“Don’t change them,” Johnson told Denison, according to both parties.
That’s certainly not the type of freedom the director of footwear, who’s tasked with bringing a new and better golf shoe to the market, wants to hear.
For Johnson, however, that sentiment is understandable. The man they call DJ rose to the top spot in the OWGR and captured the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont — his monkey-off-the-back major championship victory — while wearing Adidas’ Tour360 Boost shoes. So, of course, he feels comfortable with those shoes, and maybe there’s a bit of sentimental value to them, although he didn’t admit to it when I asked.
Actions speak louder than words, though. While I was sitting in a conference room with Denison discussing a pair of white Tour360 Boost shoes, Johnson walked by and his face lit up as he said, “I love those shoes.” Often a man of few words, his expression said more than he ever could. Surely Johnson has worn that shoe hundreds upon hundreds of times — countless hours on the course and practice range — and he still looks at the Tour360 Boost shoe with a glimmer in his eye.
“I don’t care if it’s the best shoe in the world, if it doesn’t look good, I ain’t wearing it.”
Johnson’s fondness for the Tour360 Boost left Denison, who’s in charge of bringing a new Tour360 shoe to the market, in a difficult position. When the world No. 1 golfer loves a golf shoe, it’s wise not to change too much for the new model, or else you risk him not wearing them in competition; that’s bad for business. Denison also can’t just leave the shoe alone and market it as a new shoe; that’s a bad look, and it does little to move the company and its athletes forward.
Push the envelope, but don’t change anything were essentially Denison’s instructions. Rock, meet hard place.
So, what’d Denison do? Well, he actually changed quite a lot (as we highlighted in our tech piece on the new Tour360 shoes). But in the end, he won Johnson’s favor with the new Tour360 golf shoes. The first time Johnson laced them up in competition was at the 2017 Northern Trust where he unleashed “the drive heard round the world” in a playoff against Jordan Spieth, ultimately making birdie to win the event. Not a bad way to kick things off with the new shoe, huh?
“I really like the [new] shoes, I think they’re great,” Johnson said. “Performance wise, looks. The sole is still the same, [Denison] made ’em a little lighter and a little softer. They just improved on the shoe from last year. I didn’t want them to change anything. They just improved pretty much on the shoe from last year.”
What kind of input did Johnson have other than “don’t change them,” though? Since they’re being touted as his signature shoes, surely he had more to say. And after a bit of prying, it turns out he did.
“We always have a couple meetings a year, an adi shoot,” Johnson explained. “Carve out some time where we sit down and talk about the product. Generally during shoots, I’ll wear the shoes. If I have feedback, I’ll give it to him.”
That story checks out. As Johnson walked off camera during an Adidas commercial shoot in Florida that I attended over the summer — after which he was firing 220-yard 6-irons that zoomed past a cameraman and at no target in particular — he walks up to Denison and says the laces on the new Tour360 shoes are too long. He said he likes to double knot the shoes, but he’d have to triple knot these to get the lace-length correct. Denison took a mental note of what the World No. 1 said, and they began discussing other parts of the shoe, all of which Johnson approved.
I later asked Denison how much he values the feedback of a Tour player, such as Dustin Johnson, and how often he really makes the changes they want.
“You know, they’re not shoe designers,” Denison says. “But they often have really good feedback that I’d never even think of. And ultimately, you want the player to be happy with the shoe and to wear the shoe. So I’d say, ‘sometimes.'”
According to Denison, Justin Rose’s sensitivity to shoe height is uncanny. Denison says if the shoe is a millimeter too high or too low, Rose calls it out. If you’ve seen Rose play golf, this doesn’t surprise you. He’s a tactician and a student of the game; certainly leading the wave of Trackman-obsessed golfers who dial in spin rates and launch angles.
Johnson, on the other hand, who says he hits a 4-iron 220 yards left-handed, seems to just… well, play golf. With that being the case, what’s his approach to providing feedback on a shoe? What’s he looking for?
“For me, if I don’t feel like I look good and I don’t feel like my shoes look good, then I might as well not even go to the golf course,” Johnson says. “I’m not gonna be comfortable, so I’m not gonna enjoy myself for the day.
“Looks are the first thing I look at. I don’t care if it’s the best shoe in the world. If it doesn’t look good, I ain’t wearing it. It’s simple for me. It could be the best performing shoe, make you hit it five yards farther or something. I’m still not gonna wear it if I don’t like the way it looks. It’s simple.”
When you’re the World No. 1, who’s also No. 2 in overall driving distance (hitting the ball 314 yards on average), I guess five yards doesn’t matter much anyway.
Since Johnson himself focuses mostly on looks with a shoe, and these are “his” shoes, let’s discuss the looks.
The new Tour360 shoes don’t look much like Tour360s of yesteryear. They look cleaner, classier, more premium with additional leather, and simply less sporty in general. Dare I say, they look more like adidas’ line of AdiPure golf shoes. Well, that’s by design.
“The new shoes combine a classic look with modern technology that have a more wide-ranging appeal,” says Denison. “[The new Tour360 shoes] close the gap between Tour360 and AdiPure; they’re less techy and more classy than ever.”
You may also notice two of the signature designs of Tour360 shoes are gone from its new release: the “bowling shoe” dual seams on the toe, and the S-Curve in the heel. After working with Tour360 shoes for about 10 years, Dension himself struggled to think of a Tour360 shoe with a clean toe box (re: minus the “bowling shoe” look). This is the first Tour360 with no seams on the toe in Denison’s recent memory, and it’s a change that he feels will bring the shoes a more wide-ranging appeal.
“Let’s put it this way,” Denison says. “No one isn’t going to buy the shoe because it has a clean toe, but plenty of people wouldn’t buy the shoe if the toe wasn’t clean.”
The same goes for the exclusion of the S-curve, according to Denison. He feels that going to a more standard heel shape will not put off any golfers, and the new heel design will do more to appeal to every golfer.
Despite aesthetic changes to the heel and toe, the new Tour360 shoe is largely unchanged from a performance standpoint. The new Tour360 wrap, made of TPU (thermoplastic urethane), has been raised slightly for more stability, but the shoes still leverage adidas’ popular Boost technology. The bridge, or “Torsion Tunnel,” that bridged the heel and toe portions of the Tour360 Boost soles for more stability are also present in the new Tour360 designs.
For Dustin Johnson, whose shoe philosophy starts with looks, the changes in the new Tour360 shoes make perfect sense; they perform about the same as the Tour360 Boost shoes, which he loved, and they look cleaner with all new colorways.
“The shoe’s good, I cant really feel any difference,” Johnson said. “Only thing that’s different is the toe is cleaner.”
For Masun Denison, who was tasked with designing a whole new shoe without actually changing anything, the changes also make perfect sense. He widened the mass appeal, cleaned up the looks, and most importantly, he made a shoe DJ could start winning golf tournaments with immediately. And that’s exactly what happened.
Discussion: See what GolfWRX members are saying about the new Tour360 shoes
Note: Adidas Golf’s new Tour360 shoes are available now in three introductory colorways (White/Black, Black/White and White/Blue) and they sell for $200. According to Adidas, additional colorways will be released in 2018.
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Equipment
Why Rory McIlroy will likely use the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper at the RBC Heritage
Although we spotted Rory McIlroy testing the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper last week during practice rounds at the Masters, he ultimately didn’t decide to use the club in competition.
It seems that will change this week at the 2024 RBC Heritage, played at the short-and-tight Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head.
When asked on Wednesday following his morning Pro-Am if he’d be using the new, nostalgic BRNR Copper this week, McIlroy said, “I think so.”
“I like it,” McIlroy told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday regarding the BRNR. “This would be a good week for it.”
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According to Adrian Rietveld, the Senior Manager of Tour at TaylorMade, the BRNR Mini Driver can help McIlroy position himself properly off the tee at the tight layout.
Here’s what Rietveld told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday:
“For someone like Rory, who’s that long at the top end of the bag, and then you put him on a course like Harbour Town, it’s tough off the tee. It’s tight into the greens, and you have to put yourself in position off the tee to have a shot into the green. It kind of reminds me of Valderrama in Spain, where you can be in the fairway and have no shot into the green.
“I’m caddying for Tommy [Fleetwood] this week, so I was walking the course last night and looking at a few things. There’s just such a small margin for error. You can be standing in the fairway at 300 yards and have a shot, but at 320 you don’t. So if you don’t hit a perfect shot, you could be stuck behind a tree. And then if you’re back at 280, it might be a really tough shot into the small greens.
“So for Rory [with the BRNR], it’s a nice course-specific golf club for him. He’s got both shots with it; he can move it right-to-left or left-to-right. And the main thing about this club has been the accuracy and the dispersion with it. I mean, it’s been amazing for Tommy.
“This was the first event Tommy used a BRNR last year, and I remember talking to him about it, and he said he couldn’t wait to play it at Augusta next year. And he just never took it out of the bag because he’s so comfortable with it, and hitting it off the deck.
“So you look at Rory, and you want to have the tools working to your advantage out here, and the driver could hand-cuff him a bit with all of the shots you’d have to manufacture.”
So, although McIlroy might not be making a permanent switch into the new TaylorMade BRNR Mini Driver Copper, he’s likely to switch into it this week.
His version is lofted at 13.5 degrees, and equipped with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft.
See more photos of Rory testing the BRNR Mini here
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Equipment
Spotted: TaylorMade P-UDI driving iron
It seems like the RBC Heritage is full of new gear to be spotted, and you can add TaylorMade’s P-UDI utility irons to that list.
We spotted a 17-degree P-UDI 2-iron in Nick Dunlap’s bag yesterday, and now have some photos of both the 3- and 4-irons. Nick has his P-UDI 2-iron setup with a Project X HZRDUS Black 4th Gen 105g TX shaft.
From what we can tell, this new P-UDI utility iron looks to have some of the usual TaylorMade technology as we can see the Speed Slot on the sole of the club for additional face flexibility. A toe screw is usually used to close off the hollow body design that will probably be filled with a version of TaylorMade’s Speed Foam that is present in the current iron lineup. This hollow body, foam-filled design should offer additional ball speed, soft feel, and sound, as well as an optimized CG for ball flight.
“Forged” is etched into the hosel, so we can assume that either the face, body, or both are forged for a soft and responsive feel. The club looks good from behind and at address, where we can see just a little offset and a topline that I would consider medium thickness. We don’t have the full details on what is under the hood or how many loft options will be available yet.
TaylorMade P-UDI 3-iron – 20°
TaylorMade P-UDI 4-iron – 22°
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 RBC Heritage
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Whats in the Bag
Collin Morikawa WITB 2024 (April)
- Collin Morikawa what’s in the bag accurate as of the RBC Heritage. More photos from the event here.
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 LS (9 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 60 TX (45 inches)
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (13.5 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX
5-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (18 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX
Irons: TaylorMade P770 (4), P7MC (5-6), P730 (7-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue Mid 115 X100 (4-6), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (7-PW)
Wedges: TaylorMade MG4 (50-SB09, 56-LB08), TaylorMade MG4 TW (60-TW11)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Putter: TaylorMade TP Soto
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy Tour 2.0
Grips: Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord
Ball: TaylorMade TP5x
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Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:48 am
I love them. They make me feel and look like a golffing athlete. Kaboom!!!!
lsf_21
Oct 2, 2017 at 11:11 pm
I just purchased a pair of last years tour 360 boost that have a leather heel. Hoping that it dosent blow out like my previous boost golf shoes. They tour 360 boost are the best golf shoes I have ever worn.
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:54 am
Mixed message ??!!!!
rymail00
Oct 2, 2017 at 9:04 pm
I miss the older classy looking original Adipure, or the newer (but still few years old) Adidas Pure 360 LTD shoes. I’ve boughten a pair each of the last 2 seasons, and still “I think” the best looking and it’s extremely comfortable shoe they’ve made since.
Gregory M Platupe
Oct 2, 2017 at 7:01 pm
I’m so happy to see this new design. My favorite pair is the original adipure shoe from about 5 years ago.i haven’t like the newer shoes cause of the double seams . I’ll be buying these
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:50 am
We’re so happy that you’re so happy. After you buy and try them give us a review of this new design.
Duh
Oct 2, 2017 at 3:54 pm
So why doesn’t he wear the Pure version from before?
Steve
Oct 2, 2017 at 2:52 pm
I still prefer the traditional dress-style leather shoe with a flat sole and the spikes screwed in a tad rather than flush with the sole.
I can even wear these shoes with a regular suit at a formal occasion …. after screwing out the spikes of course.
Grizz
Oct 2, 2017 at 2:08 pm
These shoes are horrible. Wore them for 1 round and tore my feet up. Yes, they are the right size. For a shoe that claims right of the box comfort… they’ve got another thing coming.
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:52 am
Sue them for abusing your feet with a rotten design. Get a good lawyer and you will win $$$$$$$$
JEC
Oct 2, 2017 at 12:36 pm
I hope the inside of the heels don’t wear out on these like the last gen…..
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:57 am
Perhaps your ‘heel’ is misshapen….. or maybe yer digging in too hard with your heels. You gotta float like a butterfly and swing like in a barrel.
chinchbugs
Oct 2, 2017 at 12:25 pm
I don’t buy new shoes with someone else’s fingerprints on them…
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 1:59 am
Wonder if toes have distinct ‘toeprints’…. like fingers do ….
TBone
Oct 2, 2017 at 10:50 am
This has always been one of my favorite course shoes.
I like to practice in spike-less and wear spikes on the course.
Weesul
Oct 3, 2017 at 2:00 am
Sam Snead played a practice round barefooted…. so the story goes …..