Two weeks into the new year, I have crossed one of my New Year’s Golf Resolutions off the list.  Today, I bought my first pair of golf shoes in at least 8 years at an Edwin Watts clearance sale.  What’s more, these are this golfer’s very first pair of spikeless golf shoes.  Specifically, a pair from the Footjoy Contour Casual collection.

Can I wear these on the golf course without wearing skinny jeans and smoking European cigarettes? I sure hope so.

This is quite the deviation from the norm, as I’m generally loathe to abberate from the classics or traditional style (be it in apparel, food, music, pretty much anything).  I usually run in the opposite direction from whatever is the hottest trend of the given day, season, year, etc.  The thought of contributing or succumbing to a fad or pop culture is abhorrent and offends my very soul. Hipster is the new metro-sexual is the new bohemian is the new beatnik and so on, and it’s all just vanity and silliness. Perhaps, the fact it’s 2014 means I’m far enough from the leading edge of the new footwear trend so as to not be confused with a trendsetter.  Also, writing this post constitutes, by far, the most time this writer has ever spent consciously thinking about shoes.

Nonetheless, I suspect it will be weird stepping onto the first tee without a pair of two-tone saddle shoes firmly planted beneath me.  Even The Wife questioned if I realized the particularly modern look of the new kicks and took my temperature on trying something new. However, the putting green-to-grillroom utility of these spikeless shoes appeals to my need to be practical, especially in light of all the travel I have planned this year.

So what if they look like the offspring of the failed romance between a pair of 70’s soccer cleats and Sperry top-siders?  It’s a new year, a new chapter, and a new season. Besides, as long as they keep the right foot from slipping on the downswing and don’t require a pair of skinny jeans, no one is really going to care what my shoes look like, will they?