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This Wild New Shoe Might Be the Blueprint to Nike’s Future in Golf

After years of making inroads with a new generation of golfers, Jordan Brand’s Air Rev golf shoe might be Nike’s most viable path to growth in the sport.

A photo illustration of a Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoe shown in front of an illustrated pattern of golf ballsNike

By Ben Bowers

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Nike’s Golf strategy has had a nearly decade-long case of the yips, and that might be putting in politely.

In 2016, the company announced it was leaving the golf equipment business but would keep making golf apparel.

The reason for the decision was cut and dry in the eyes of co-founder Phil Knight. “It’s a fairly simple equation,” Knight shared in an interview conducted with Bloomberg back in 2017. “We lost money for 20 years on equipment and balls, and we realized next year wasn’t going to be any different.”

Just last year, the company also ended its 27-year relationship with Tiger Woods, who at least at one point, was the sun that Nike’s entire golf strategy revolved around.

A golfer on a green is walking towards another golfer, putting shown from the waist down. The golfer is wearing a pair of Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoes in white with bright blue accent straps.
The story of Jordan Brand’s newly released Air Rev golf shoes revolves heavily around technology and innovation. In many ways, this represents a significant pivot from the brand’s previous golf shoe strategy over the last decade, which mainly centered on releasing stylish, contemporary golf shoes that channeled the aesthetics of some of Jordan Brand’s most iconic basketball sneakers.
Nike

But beneath the mothership’s headline-grabbing struggles, a Nike subsidiary, Jordan Brand, has been quietly and quickly building a new foothold in the sport over the last decade, especially amongst a younger generation of golfers.

Until now, Jordan Brand’s product playbook, for the most part, prioritized style over substance. Many of its most successful shoes were simply golfing-tuned versions of existing popular Jordan sneakers.

The brand’s newly unveiled Air Rev shoe feels like the start of a new, more deliberate, performance-centric push into golf. It’s also a project that seems to have Nike’s broader corporate fingerprints all over it.

Jordan Brand Reinterprets Nike’s Defining Footwear Innovation (Again)

A close-up view of the Jordan Brand Air Rev’s moveable Air Zoom, which appeared to be a clear reddish pink piece of plastic with Jordan Brand's iconic Jumpman logo in black at the center
Jordan Brand and Nike are promoting a moveable, trapezoidal-shaped airbag unit as the key innovation of the new Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoe.
Nike

Convincing the powers that be at Jordan Brand to begin dabbling in golf likely didn’t take much internal arm twisting.

After all, the man himself, Michael Jordan, is widely known to be obsessed with golf. He famously had the motivation (and energy) to squeeze in 36 holes the morning before dominating night games for the “Dream Team” in the 1992 Olympics.

Yet the brand’s first-ever golf shoe wasn’t a particularly bold move in the market when it was released in the summer of 2015.

For all intents, it was a low-risk, limited-edition version of the brand’s Jordan Flight Runner 2 training shoe, with a spiky golf outsole swapped in.

A pair of grey and white Jordan Flight Runner 2 golf shoes is shown sitting on a golf course green with a golf flag blurred in the background. One shoe is shown sitting upright in profile with the toe facing to the left. Another is shown in the background lying diagonally on its side to reveal the spiked outsole.
In 2015, the Jordan Brand released its first dedicated golf shoe. The Jordan Flight Runner Golf was essentially a version of the Jordan Flight Runner 2 training shoe with a spiky golf outsole.
Nike

The new Air Rev is an entirely different animal with far grander ambitions.

Jordan Brand calls the shoe’s primary innovation “Flight Lock technology.” Functionally, it boils down to a new implementation of one of Nike’s most iconic (and oldest) footwear innovations, the same one that forms the bedrock of “Air” Jordan brand.

Nike originally unveiled its Nike Air technology back in 1979. As the company describes it, the innovation revolved around injecting “pressurized air in a durable, flexible membrane to provide lightweight cushioning” that then “compresses on impact and then immediately returns to its original shape and volume, ready for the next impact.”

A single Nike AIR TAILWIND 79 sneaker in grey and white with a bright blue check floating above what appears to be a graph paper background.
Contrary to what many might assume, Nike’s first sneaker to feature an air cushioning unit was a running shoe called the Air Tailwind, which debuted during the 1978 marathon season in Hawaii. The Air Tailwind 79 shown above is a modern reincarnation of the groundbreaking running shoe.
Nike

To date, Nike Air units of nearly every shape and size have been directly integrated into countless sneakers. The Air Rev Golf Shoe, however, ships with a small, trapezoidal-shaped Air bag unit that’s designed to be moveable.

Specifically, wearers can insert the piece into a special pouch that sits alongside the sidewall of each shoe.

The removable Air unit is designed to slide into whichever shoe functions as the trailing or back foot in the golfer’s stance to help provide pressure.

A video screenshot of a rendering of the Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoe showing how a moveable air unit and foam pod slide into an integrated pout of the shoe.
This image illustrates how both the moveable Air unit and Formula23 foam unit can slide into a dedicated pouch located of a single Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoe.
Nike

A similarly shaped and removable “Formula23 foam unit” is designed to slide into the same pouch of the opposite lead shoe to increase stance stability.

The key idea is that the shoe’s design offers optimized support and cushioning for left- and right-handed golfers with a simple swap.

Plus Other Tweaks New and Old

A close-up of the lacing system of the Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoe.
The Jordan Air Rev Golf shoe ditches traditional laces for what the company describes as a “dial lacing system,” which we suspect is a Jordan-branded version of Boa’s excellent fit system.
Nike

The Air Rev’s theme of optimized fit extends beyond its swappable pad and air unit.

What’s described in Jordan Brand’s press materials as a “dial lacing system,” which we strongly suspect might be just a Jordan-branded version of Boa’s excellent Fit System, also allows wearers to easily tighten or loosen the shoe’s waterproof synthetic upper with just a few rotations.

A so-called “leno weave strap,” which appears to hide the shoe’s integrated pouches for the Air Rev’s removable foam and Air units, also serves double duty as an easy way to cinch in the shoe’s fit.

A close-up of the integrated traction pattern of the Jordan Brand Air Rev golf shoeNike

In contrast to many sneaker-inspired golf shoes, including options from Jordan, the Air Rev also features a substantial amount of spikey traction in a pattern that Jordan Brand states was “informed by advanced pressure mapping” to “promote stability.”

A New Playbook for Nike Golf?

A Jordan Air Rev Golf shoe shown being worn on a golfer's foot in mid-swing with blurred edges. NIke

No one on the Nike or Jordan Brand side seems interested in downplaying their grand aspirations for the Air Rev.

Neither party seems preoccupied either with disguising the heavy hand the Nike side of the house might have had in bringing this shoe to market.

If centering the shoe’s innovation around a new implementation of Nike’s iconic Air technology wasn’t enough of a signal, the shoe’s press materials position Matt Plum, a Men’s Sport Footwear Director at Nike, as the core spokesperson for the shoe’s development.

Jordan Brand also included a direct quote from MJ on why the iconic brand, firmly rooted in the history of his epic basketball legacy, felt compelled to start moving in a new direction beyond offering OG silhouettes with spikes.

“The future of golf isn’t tied to its past. For the next generation, it’s bolder and more modern. Jordan Brand Golf blends performance, innovation and iconic style, building a future where the players, not the past, define what’s next.”

An image of a Jordan Brand Air Rev shoe with a quote from Michael Jordan overlayed in white.
Michael Jordan isn’t being coy about the new vision he has for Jordan golf.
Nike

Reading the tea leaves, it’s hard not to see a project like the Air Rev as a Trojan horse for Nike’s grander future golf ambitions.

There’s no reason why this shoe couldn’t have been launched under the Nike Golf label unless you’re willing to indulge in some admittedly conspiratorial thinking.

It just feels like a shoe that’s lab-grown to address Nike Golf and Jordan Brand’s most significant shortcomings.

Thanks to the Air Rev, Nike’s innovation team has introduced a new golf footwear technology that is at least somewhat free of the negative brand associations created by Nike Golf’s recent backsliding.

Reading the tea leaves, it’s hard not to see a project like the Air Rev as a Trojan horse for Nike’s grander future golf ambitions.

Jordan Brand also gains a new advanced golf shoe to serve a slightly different segment of players more focused on adding an extra edge to their game than their outfit.

“This is the start of a revolution in the game of golf,” Matt Plum, Men’s Sport Footwear Director at Nike, calmly states at the close of a promotional video Jordan Brand created for the shoe.

Only time will tell if he’s right. The same goes for Nike’s commitment to launching its biggest golf innovations via Jordan Brand in the future.

The new Air Rev is scheduled to go on sale on May 14 at jordan.com and select retail partners in North America, followed by a global launch in the coming months.

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