Conor Keenan
The sheer volume of golf shoes on the market can make choosing a pair rather overwhelming. If you prefer to walk the course, using one of the best carry bags or best push carts, then comfort is an important consideration. But what helps make the best shoes for walking?
It starts with fit and also encompasses factors such as breathability, the level of cushioning and the overall weight of the shoe - given that most rounds of golf last for four to five hours and see you walking for five miles or more it's vital that you treat your feet well!
WATCH: Dan Parker runs through the best golf shoes of 2025
You might have a preference for a versatile shoe that can be worn both on and off the golf course, or perhaps you’ve been suffering from foot issues like the great Tiger Woods and need to consider the best golf shoes for plantar fasciitis or the best golf shoes for wide feet?
Whatever your requirements there’s a shoe for you. We’ve tested a huge number of pairs in recent times and to help you put your best foot forward we've selected those we believe are the best for walking.
The Quick List
A five star golf shoe, the Quantum is one of the most comfortable on the market, with there being no aches or pains no matter how long we wore these shoes for.
One of the top spikeless shoes of 2025, the new outsole design on the Adizero ZG shoes ensure exceptional traction whilst keeping the weight at a minimum to ensure less leg and foot fatigue as you walk.
We love Ecoo golf shoes and, with the LT1, you get a lightweight design that offers ample comfort, as well as a locked-in feel from the smart BOA System
Those with flat feet will love the support on offer from Sketchers' Go Golf Prestige golf shoes. The Arch Fit and Slip-In technology are as good as ever while the styling and execution of this shoe will appeal to a wider range of golfers than ever before.
A shoe built for the golf course, driving range and everywhere in between, the S2G SL provides excellent value for money and a stylish design.
An outstanding shoe, the NEXT% 2 delivers comfort, style and performance. The comfort and stability on offer out of the box is outstanding and the modern styling looks great.
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Providing a premium, stylish and versatile design, the Gallivan2r is a really high-quality offering that has excellent grip and comfort.
A spiked shoe to compete with the very best. The improvements on last year's model are minimal, but it provides excellent traction, support and a sharp look.
Best Golf Shoes For Walking
Top pick
‘Cloud like Comfort’ is a bold claim, but FootJoy might be onto something with its Quantum golf shoe. During testing we were left impressed with the high degree of cushioning, delivered in part by its SofFoam technology that’s used in and around the heel. It resulted in a genuinely pleasant walking experience, with a floaty sensation underfoot combining with plenty of energy absorption that protected our feet on all the surfaces we encountered.
Like many incredibly soft and cushioned golf shoes, stability is compromised a little, but given that you’re after a shoe that excels when walking it’s likely a trade-off you’ll be happy to make. Vitally the spikeless outsole does deliver decent traction in both wet and dry conditions, and while we’d never describe it as the grippiest out there, it’s reliable enough.
- Read our full FootJoy Quantum Golf Shoe Review
Best outsole
Perhaps one of the most comfortable golf shoes in the game right now, is the Adidas Adizero ZG. It's a return to the market for the Adizero title, a name more so known for the adidas' exploits with their running shoes that were first released in 2004. We saw the Adizero name enter the golf space for the first time in 2013 but they given it was a brief hiatus, it showed the shoes didn't quite meet the demand the brand hoped they would. Fast forward to 2025 and they have returned, already proving popular amongst both professional and amateur players.
The standout feature for the Adizero ZG shoes is the new outsole which matches the grip and security you get from a conventional spiked shoe almost identically. We would never say a spikeless shoe can offer more grip than a spiked shoe, but this isn’t far off. The aggressive lugs on the perimeter of the outsole do most of the heavy lifting in terms of lateral grip and our testing showed that this is a shoe that provides ample grip in all possible conditions.
If you're a player who rarely takes a cart and prefer to walk 18 holes on a regular basis, this is a shoe that could become your go-to option. The feel is one that is both lightweight but also gives off a premium shoe - it feels like a shoe packed full of technology and a result of plenty of research into what makes a good lightweight golf shoe. The materials are soft to the touch and the moulded heel cushion provides targeted padding to a key area of comfort. The support is superb too as it locks your foot in place in the right areas while allowing the foot to move through the swing as it is naturally supposed to do.
- Read our full Adidas Adizero ZG Golf Shoe Review
Best BOA
The LT1 from Ecco is another modern looking affair that blends the stylings of a traditional golf shoe with that of a sneaker. Aesthetics are subjective of course, but we were impressed with the quality of materials used, the softness of the shoe and with just how light it felt.
All these factors combined to create a comfortable shoe. Ecco’s new midsole foam - Ecco Ltyr - combines with its Fluidform technology to deliver bags of cushioning and rebound. We loved the degree of energy return when we walked the course that had us bouncing along the fairways and feeling less fatigued toward the end of the round.
The level of softness does have a price though. The LT1 isn’t as supportive as some of its spineless competitors and we noticed that our foot did have a tendency to roll ever so slightly during a swing.
- Read our full Ecco LT1 Golf Shoe Review
Best support
Sketchers are more so known for their running shoes and as a result, running shoe-style golf shoes. However, their Go Golf Prestige shoes boast a lovely classic style that really caught my eye when I took them out of the box and thus peaked my excitement ahead of testing.
One of the first things I noticed was how good the arch support was, thus making them a perfect inclusion for this guide. If you struggle with flat feet like I do, these will help support your weak arches and give you a trouble-free walk for your 18 holes. this support is achieved via Sketcher's Arch Fit which gently lifts the arch of your foot upwards to help reduce foot fatigue and overall aches and pains. This is then complimented by the excellent slip in technology and the heel pillow feature which adds comfort both putting them on in the golf club locker room and whilst walking the golf course.
This technology is also complimented by one of the softest heels I've ever experienced in a golf shoe which will prove particularly beneficial to those who have pointy heels like myself and thus can be susceptible to blisters from golf shoes. This is yet another impressive offering from Skechers who have really upped their game in terms of golf shoes in the last number of years and impressed us so much that they earned a spot on our Editor's Choice awards list for 2025. They are without doubt one of the best Skechers golf shoes and one of the best value golf shoes of the year, too.
- Read our full Skechers Go Golf Prestige Golf Shoe Review
Best value
The S2G SL is another hybrid offering that uses a running shoe design to create a golf shoe that can work both on and off the golf course. And for the most part it succeeds.
Aesthetically we think it makes for stylish shoes that borrows heavily from adidas’ vast experience in designing clean looking, modern sneakers. Certainly it translates to a versatile shoe, but like many in this growing category, it does mean they are far better suited to dry, firm course conditions rather than the wet and mud that winter golf can bring - especially in the white and green colorway we tested. However, there is also a spiked version available should you like the look of the shoe but desire more traction.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the running shoe styling, we found the S2G SL to be very comfortable and particularly well-suited to golfers with wide feet. It’s worth noting that if you’ve worn some of Adidas's more traditional golf footwear, the fit is a little different.
- Read our full Adidas S2G SL Golf Shoe Review
Best spiked
This is another Nike shoe with ‘pro appeal’. The footwear of choice for Brooks Koepka, the Air Zoom Infinity Tour Next% cuts less of a traditional look than Rory’s Victory Tour 3 model and as such might not be for everyone. But if performance and comfort is what really concerns you, then read on.
The Air Zoom unit which comprises cushioned insole and midsole foam is both comfortable and stable. We tested the shoes on a 72 hole event straight out of the box and found them to be some of the most comfortable golf shoes we'd tried.
The flyweave upper adds to the shoe’s supreme levels of comfort and has the bonus of being waterproof too. In fact, Nike offers a two-year warranty on the shoe’s waterproofness, making it a four-season workhorse should you require it.
Traction and stability are just as impressive. We particularly liked the additional spikes located in the forefoot, an upgrade from the previous model, which featured four spikes to the six found here. It makes for one of the best spiked golf shoes we’ve tested to date.
- Read our full Nike Air Zoom Infinity Tour Next% 2 Golf Shoe Review
Best looking
While many of the best golf shoes for walking use attributes found in modern sneakers to deliver comfort, the Gallivan2r G/Lock from G/Fore follows a different path.
Cutting a pretty classic silhouette it’s likely to appeal to traditionalists and those who haven’t yet been won over by the sneaker stylings of many of today's golf shoes. The waterproof TPU upper is devoid of unnecessary detail, and uses the tried-and-tested saddle design that looks timeless and is easy to clean too.
However, it’s matched with a springy midsole and an outsole that features 10 Flex Pro soft spikes that we feel are among the best cleats available. Combined it made for a comfortable, lightweight pair of shoes with sufficient rebound and truly excellent grip across a range of conditions.
Note, we found that the Gallivan2r G/Lock came up a little on the larger side.
- Read our full G/FORE Gallivan2r G/Lock Saddle Shoe Review
Best grip
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about the Ignite Articulate from Puma is the tongue design. Like some sneakers it uses a single construction that grips the foot and helps keep the weight of the shoe low. It combines this with a plastic cage that acts as additional support for the foot - it works in much the same way as the FootJoy Tour Alpha shoe that we like for its ‘locked in’ feel.
We were impressed with the Ignite Foam insole that delivered excellent energy return and helped to put a spring in our step. As for the outsole, the eight tornado grips that line it provided plenty of traction. The result was that we felt confident to swing with speed and power, whether we were out on the course or practicing, making these great golf shoes for the driving range too.
- Read our full Puma Ignite Articulate Golf Shoe Review
How we test golf shoes
At Golf Monthly we pride ourselves with our reviews process thanks to the trust we've built with our readership over years of reviewing the best (and worst) golf equipment. Whether it's the best golf shoes, the best golf drivers or the best golf bags, our ideology remains the same - deliver the most informative, bias-free buying advice for our readers. This can only be achieved through thorough testing of each product.
Due to the fact we review so many products, our testing team are often out on the golf course - which requires them to be wearing golf shoes! As a result, each shoe in this guide gets testing across multiple days and rounds as well as different golf courses as we really put them through their paces. It's not a case of simply sliding them on for a quick nine holes in the evening and judging them after that, but rather we see how the shoe performs over a longer period of time to get a better understanding of how it actually performs. In both play and practice, we evaluate them for quality of the materials and the construction, the stability and grip they offer, the degree of waterproofing, and vitally for a guide to the best golf shoes for walking, the level of comfort they deliver.
Dan Parker on course testing the Ecco LT1 golf shoe
We also know each unique selling point of each shoe, be that grip, comfort, waterproofing etc. We then really focus on this during testing - for example if a shoe sells itself as waterproof we will head out in wet conditions to test it out or, alternatively, pour water over the shoe and then feel the inside to see if it has remained dry.
Our final pledge to you is that all of our reviews are impartial and free from bias. Our testing is conducted and reviews written by golfers, for golfers, with the goal of giving you our honest opinions on each product - be that clubs, apparel, accessories or more. No brand ever gets preferential treatment over another and no manufacturer can 'buy' a positive review. We simply call it how we see it - we always have and we always will.
How to choose golf shoes
1. Comfort
A golf shoe needs to be comfortable but this can be delivered in different ways. Consider the materials used, as well as the technology on offer. Some shoes grip the foot more than others. Others feel firmer underfoot. Try on a few pairs and see what works best for you.
2. Grip/Stability/Traction
A golf swing works from the ground up and if you don’t have sufficient grip, stability and traction, your results will suffer. We’ve all slipped while swinging the club and it’s not a pleasant feeling, typically leading to a less-than-ideal contact. A shoe that lacks stability can also cause discomfort and even injury overtime. You’ll need to choose between spikes or spikeless - if you’re looking for a wet-weather option we’d also suggest checking out our guide to the best winter golf shoes.
3. Looks
As mentioned already in this buying guide - look good, feel good, play good. It's not just a cliche either, if you feel good on the course then you're putting yourself in the best position to succeed. If you want a traditional design then something like the FootJoy Pro/SL will work well, whereas if you want to stand out a bit more, the adidas Codechaos is something to consider. There are plenty of options out there now, with high top golf shoes, golf sneakers and golf boots all to choose from - check out our buying guides for more.
4. Waterproofing
Most of the models featured in this guide are waterproof. If you’re looking for a pair that can be used year-round it’s a vital ingredient. After all, wet feet after just a few holes makes for a pretty miserable experience. We’d also recommend checking out specific brands that have long waterproof warranties.
5. Sizes
This is where trying on a range of shoes really helps. Like with any shoe, certain brands and models will fit differently even if the size on the box is the same.
6. Budget
Be aware of how much you want to spend because there is a model above for people at different price points. Shoes typically price above $100 these days, but we have our buying guide for the best golf shoes under $100 for those looking for a bargain.
FAQs
Are golf shoes okay for walking?
Yes definitely. Modern golf shoes are designed to be as comfortable and supportive across 18 holes of golf. Most golfers will cover anywhere from 3 to 6 miles playing a game of golf, so pretty much all golf shoes will be suitable for other walks too.
What are the most comfortable golf shoes made from?
The most comfortable golf shoes are often made with soft, full-grain leather uppers and come with plenty of support and padding in the midsole. Our guide on the most comfortable golf shoes goes into more depth on the most comfortable golf shoes currently on the market.
What's the difference between a winter and a summer golf shoe?
Most golf shoes are made to be used all-year-round, but we do find that there are some shoes that are more suited to winter or summer golf. Depending on the climate and temperatures you regularly play in your buying preference will lean to one of these categories. Winter golf shoes tend to be more suitable for wet, muddy conditions, featuring spikes, waterproof designs and are generally a little more robust than summer shoes. Dissimilarly, shoes that are better for summer golf will tend to be a bit lighter, offer better breathability and ventilation and lastly will not generally feature spiked soles.
