Golf Without Shoes Must Be All The Rage

Not since Sam Snead supposedly played 9 holes at Augusta without spikes on has there been so much buzz in the golf world about people playing high-level competitive golf without their feet properly attired. First, Nick Faldo said that Padraig Harrington likes to warm-up without a shoe on just his left foot so that his weight naturally flows that way through his swing. (Come to think of it, I might try that at the range this afternoon. But I digress...) Then I see footage of some guy I've never heard of playing in the Nationwide Tour's Ford Wayne Gretzky Classic this past week in Canada in just sandals. But they weren't just any old sandals mind you, and not even "golf" sandals. They were the kind with the little thing that goes between your first and second toes (I call them flip-flops)--no biggee I guess except the guy also had socks on under those flip-flops, thereby crushing all that cotton between his toes. And he shot 4-under that day! And finally, I read in my Golf Weekly magazine this morning that some guy I've never heard of played the last 6 holes of his recent match in the British Amateur without his shoes because he had such bad blisters on his feet because of them. And he didn't have an extra pair in his bag? This is becoming an epidemic. Everyone remembers the do-do in the Golf Channel's "The Big Break" who played barefoot don't they? Well I don't think that ever caught on, thank goodness. But this is starting to seem like more than just a trend. Maybe people have been doing it with this kind of regularity for quite some time and the media just hasn't paid as much attention to it. I don't know. Whatever the case, rest assured that I'll keep paying attention to the fad and keep reporting on it should it continue to make the news.