The Rise and Fall of FootJoy: The $300 Golf Shoe That Closed Its Last American Factory

In the spring of two thousand nine, the leather cutters at a factory in Brockton, Massachusetts, learned they would be the first to go. Nobody had done anything wrong. Cutting simply comes first. A golf shoe begins as a hide on a table. So the cutters cut the leather for one final batch, and then they were let go. The factory was being shut down in the same order a shoe is made. That shoe was the FootJoy Classic: 165 steps a pair, a Goodyear-welted leather sole, steel spikes, and for half a century the shoe under nearly every great swing in America. This is the story of how a Civil War-era shoemaker from "Shoe City" became the number one shoe in golf, how two brothers named Tarlow built the best golf shoe in the world on Field Street, why their own workers walked a picket line in 1985 to keep them in charge, and how a $300 shoe that made up 2 percent of sales closed FootJoy's last American factory. FootJoy is still number one. This is about what it stopped making. Did you ever own a pair of FootJoy Classics? Tell me the color, the year, and whether you ever had them resoled. I read every one. And if you want more stories like this, subscribe here:    / @persimmonarchive   IN THIS VIDEO FootJoy, Foot-Joy, FootJoy Classics, Classics Dry Premiere, Classics Tour, DryJoys, FootJoy Icon, Premiere Series, Packard, Tarlow, Burt and Packard Shoe Company, Field and Flint, Stone and Tarlow, Frederick Packard, Perley Flint, Bill Tarlow, Richard Tarlow, Jack Erickson, Jim Connor, Walter Hagen, 1927 Ryder Cup, Johnny Farrell, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Tommy Bolt, Dow Finsterwald, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Darren Clarke, Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Nick Watney, Rocky Marciano, Herbert Warren Wind, General Mills, Acushnet, Titleist, Fortune Brands, Alden Shoe Company, Brockton Massachusetts, Shoe City, Goodyear welt, metal spikes, soft spikes, saddle golf shoes, made in USA golf shoes, golf shoe history, vintage golf shoes. SOURCES The Boston Globe, "FootJoy closing ends era," March 22, 2009. Golf World / Golf Digest, "Stepping Lightly," March 2009. Golf Channel equipment report on the Brockton closing, 2009. Golfdom, August 2009. Mass Golf, "Remembering Bill Tarlow," 2021. FootJoy company history and centennial materials. GOLF.com, "Inside FootJoy's century of strides," May 2023. International Directory of Company Histories, Acushnet Company entry. Acushnet Holdings Corp. annual report for fiscal 2025 and quarterly filings, 2025 to 2026. #FootJoy #GolfHistory #PersimmonArchive