Three men’s majors have been played in 2026. Three different champions have lifted each trophy. Yet, all of them had one thing in common.
The game’s top professionals are always on the lookout for those incremental marginal gains in performance. It’s part and parcel of top-level sport.
Perhaps the latest trend in the pursuit of this level of excellence lies with replaceable spikes. They have been present under the feet of this year’s major winners, lifting the game’s most prestigious trophies.
The winners of the Masters, PGA Championship and U.S. Open all wore Softspikes on their way to major glory, continuing a trend that has become somewhat impossible to ignore for the regular club golfer.
It is quite the remarkable run that reflects a wider change in the professional game.
Could the most important bit of golf equipment be the one golfers pay least attention to?
Why traction still matters
Golf may not look like the most athletic of sports, but as golf swings continue to be more explosive and packed with speed, stability is a big demand on players.
With the average PGA Tour professional hitting the ball over 300 yards off the tee, having a strong base can be key.
It’s for that reason, choosing the right golf shoes for you can be imperative to improved on-course results. As most golfers know all too well, even the slightest loss of grip can skew the quality of strike.
According to Softspikes, 45 of the top 52 finishers at this year’s U.S. Open chose replaceable spikes over spikeless or trainer-style golf shoes. For a tournament renowned as one of the toughest tests in golf, that’s a striking statistic.
One that pushes back against the suggestion that spikeless models are now the norm and most popular, certainly when it comes to the men’s professional game.
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A growing trend?
The majors are far from isolated instances in 2026.
The victory extended a remarkable run on the PGA Tour, with players wearing spikes now winning 24 consecutive events. Even more notably, every men’s and women’s major championship winner so far this year has opted for replaceable spikes.
That follows a similar pattern from 2025, when all four men’s major champions also wore spikes.
While there are countless factors that contribute to winning golf tournaments, the consistency of this trend suggests that many elite players still view guaranteed traction as a genuine performance advantage.
It also begs the question as to whether spikeless alternatives are having the opposite effect and if club golfers should abandon them altogether.
We recently spoke to Under Armour’s Head of Footwear Optimisation, Chris Murtagh, about the whole spiked vs spikeless golf shoe debate and he insisted the latter still has a place.
“As people get very high peak forces, and that can be unique to individuals, not necessarily handicap related,” he said. “Some people just create a lot of force, even if they could be high handicaps.
“If they’re the case, often in a spike shoe, particularly on dry ground, they can start to shear and can start to slip. So, in that case, we would probably be looking more at spikeless.”
- NOW READ: The importance of choosing the right golf shoe size
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- NOW READ: Why some golfers should ditch spiked golf shoes – and why others shouldn’t
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