Named after St Andrews Golf, the birthing grounds of golf, this pair is a classic golf shoe. It features a hand welted construction and a Softspikes screw in system, through leather outoles covered in rubber sheeting.
This is a summary of the finished shoes – In the construction post, I describe how they were made.
Here’s a look at the softspikes in place.
It was very difficult to finish the heels with the rubber sheeting going across the entire, hand stitched leather outsole (including in under the heel). Finishing in general is something I still want to work on and develop a great deal.
On my feet, posing on my neglected decking.
Winter is coming, but at least they got to feel grass and do a couple of swings before the long night.
The first swing:
Specs:
Construction: English welted
Uppers: Italian white calf and brown madras calf
Lining: 2 oz veg tanned baby calf
Insoles: J&FJ Baker
Outsoles: Italian outsole leather with 1.8 mm Svig rubber sheeting
Toe/heel stiffeners: 5 oz from Tärnsjö Garveri
Welt: natural welting leather from Leather & Grindery
Shank: Plastic
Screw in system: M6 T-nuts with Softspikes
Heel lifts: 5 mm, mainly
Sockliner: dunno, something I had lying around the shop
Secret Cobbler 
They are beautiful shoes. Your craft is coming along nicely! One question about the soles…Why not just use a complete rubber sole instead of a rubber sheet glued on a leather sole? I have a pair of Allen Edmonds leather Oxfords which over here in the USA are considered one of the top shoe manufactures and the sole is all rubber and they look to be Goodyear welted. Footjoy also used to make welted golf shoes and they just used a full leather sole, not good for rain but they were nice shoes. Have you walked an entire round in them? I was wondering if you could feel the t-nuts under your feet. I have a couple of nice oxfords in mind i want to convert to golf shoes and I was also thinking of using the t-nuts. Keep up the post! Someday I am going to start learning the craft!
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Thank you kindly, Curt – that’s very nice to hear!
Allen Edmonds produce factory made shoes, and indeed do goodyear welted lines – with a machine made stitch. (Goodyear welted shoes by definition are not handmade, as “goodyear” is the name of the machine that does the stitch – not the actual construction method.) These shoes are handmade in contrast; hand welted and with hand stitched soles. Hand stitching through rubber soles is simply not done, from what I gather, while machine stitching through rubber outsoles is a piece of cake. On any handmade, hand welted shoes with rubber outsoles (golf shoes or not), there will typically be a hand stitched leather midsole, and the rubber on top will be cemented. In this case, the rubber on top also served the purpose of filling the gap between the protruding T-nut, and the leather ‘midsole’ (which is illustrated in the construction post).
That said, I also think pounding T-nuts into moist veg tanned leather from the inside makes the t-nuts stick better once the leather is dry, than were the t-nuts to be pound into rubber. At least, I could envision doing it in leather but I couldn’t envision how I could do it and succeed with rubber.
I also contemplated making a full leather sole, but decided not to due to practicality (walking through wet grass for 4,5 hours…). Maybe for my next golf shoe, to be used only on dry summer days. 😉 Alas, I haven’t walked these through an entire round yet, but that’s because I’ve played way too little golf. On the range, I can’t feel the t-nuts through the sole at all, though I don’t know yet if that would last 18 holes. (The leather insole is super thick, and the foot bed filled with tar felt.)
I think that if you aim to convert existing oxfords to golf soles, you’d need to do a full re-sole on them. Hope it works out, and all the best!
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Thank you. That is good information about rubber soles, I didn’t stop and think of how difficult that would be hand stitching. I’ve mentioned to my wife about making my own shoes and showing her your blogs. We have the perfect space and it may become a reality soon. Keep up the good work, it’s very encouraging to see someone take on a skill that is so hard to master without much help from the web. Seems like you can google anything these days and learn how to do it but, shoe making looks to be a secret art.
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Thanks Curt, I’m happy to hear it! I hope you can get the necessary spousal approval and get started. 🙂
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They’re beautiful! Can you say something about the difference between the premium calf skin you used on these shoes and the Aniline Single Mixed Calfskin that I ordered from the same website (and I believe you’ve used before)? Thank you in advance!
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