FootJoy’s 2026 shoes have reached the final stage of their performance development process – tour validation.
The world’s best players are now being fit into FootJoy’s next-generation tour-performance footwear – the reinvented Pro/SL and the fully updated Premiere Series.
Transitioning tour players into new models is the ultimate proof point that FootJoy’s product development teams have achieved their goal – creating footwear that meets the demands of the game’s most demanding athletes while exceeding expectations for golfers everywhere.
The footwear development journey begins years before these final prototypes are shown to players. The process is built from two foundational perspectives to inform the design process – data-informed design using decades of proprietary research in the FJ Performance Lab, and direct player feedback to understand evolving performance needs around traction, stability, ground interaction, comfort and fit.
The initial round of prototypes first reached tour players at the 2024 PGA Tour Playoffs at East Lake Golf Club. Sahith Theegala (Pro/SL) and Adam Scott (Premiere Series) tested early prototypes with James Bubba Kroeger, FootJoy’s senior manager of sports marketing, seeking initial feedback and insights to bring back to the team. That was the first of four major product checkpoints between the FootJoy leadership teams and tour players.
In January 2025, at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Will Zalatoris and Keith Mitchell tested prototype Premiere Series shoes in practice rounds. In March, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Cam Young, Sahith Theegala and Adam Scott tested round two prototypes. Then in October and November – at Panther National in Florida and at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai – final performance fittings for Will Zalatoris, Justin Thomas, Sahith Theegala, Davis Riley, Ewen Ferguson and Daniel Hillier took place.
The FJ Performance Lab, officially established in 2020, formalised decades of advanced research and engineering into a dedicated space for performance-driven design. Located at the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) in Oceanside, California and the Titleist Performance Centre at Manchester Lane (TPC), just minutes from FootJoy’s design headquarters, the FJ Performance Lab enables continuous testing across specialised golf-specific machines, multiple turf types, and varied soil compositions.
Continuous mechanical, biomechanical and psychophysical testing takes place at TPI and Manchester Lane with proprietary testing protocols evaluating every model, capturing more than 500,000 data points per shoe. A total of 20million data points across nine performance metrics are collected each year.
There are multiple testing phases during development, often building on technologies researched for five or more years. Extensive fit and wear testing with a panel of more than 1,000 golfers of varying skill levels and profiles also takes place. Wear tests include 26 measurement criteria, with shoes analysed after 12-20-plus rounds.
The new Premiere Series aims to set the standard for tour performance footwear, enhancing comfort and traction while maintaining the stability and fit preferred by the world’s best players.
The Pro/SL, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has been completely reinvented and is 30% lighter with improved comfort, an all-new traction pattern, and a new athletic fit.
Following successful tour adoption, FootJoy will introduce these models to golfers worldwide.
