If the shoe fits — I mean really fits — it must be FootJoy.
At least that’s what the venerable maker of golf footwear wants you to assume since debuting a proprietary, state-of-the-art technology that uses lasers to determine a precise fit.
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The FootJoy Laser Fitting System — patented in Sept. 1997 and introduced to consumers earlier this month — already is helping golfers select the right shoe from among FootJoy’s vast inventory. In the future, it will serve as the basis for more and better styles, said Tim Murphy, senior product manager for Titleist and FootJoy Worldwide in Fairhaven, Mass.
The driving force behind the system was in-house research concluding that 80 percent of golfers are wearing the wrong size shoe, and that 60 percent of them risk their comfort and their game, as a result, Murphy said. FootJoy’s product development team conceived of the device about five years ago and partnered with the biomechanics laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to give it shape.
The result is a robotic arm that moves a high-speed laser camera around the sides of the foot to record about 10,000 digital images.
The traditional Brannock measuring device with its sliding rule measures only length and width, Murphy said. The laser system goes much further to measure things like toe length, forefoot and heel girth, instep and the foot’s overall volume. It also identifies painful pressure points caused by bunions, hammer toes, bone spurs and the like.
The scanning process takes about 40 seconds — 80 seconds for both feet — during which the consumer watches a three-dimensional image of his or her foot take shape on a computer screen.
It’s scientific, but “there’s a certain amount of razzle dazzle, too,” Murphy said.
The computer takes another five to 10 minutes to determine the appropriate size from among FootJoy’s 14 sizes and 11 widths. The result is a custom-like fit in the off-the shelf $49.95 to $260 price range; or, in the rare case of significantly different size feet, the model for a costlier, custom-made shoe.
The PGA Tour Stop that opened Nov. 13 at the World Golf Village in Saint Augustine, Fla., is the first retail store to be outfitted with the laser system. There, Tom Carberry, vice president of purchasing, has been overwhelmed by its reception.
“It’s been tremendous to this point. The interest in FootJoy has been just phenomenal in terms of the number of people coming in wanting to get fitted on the laser system — in many cases people who have used FootJoy for 30 years,” Carberry said. “Some are actually changing their size after years of wearing the same shoe.”
The right fit in a golf shoe is important, Carberry said, because an ill-fitting shoe can upset one’s balance. “The shoe needs to fit a little bit differently than just a casual street shoe which is somewhat loose and sloppy. Your foot should fit fairly snugly in the (golf) shoe so that it provides a stable platform to swing from,” he said.
In less than two weeks, the store has fitted more than 280 people, Carberry said, adding the advantages of the system are now clear to him.
“You can do the same thing trying on a bunch of shoes to a certain extent. The problem becomes FootJoy makes 143 shoes,” he said. “It’s virtually impossible to have every width in every size in every style.”
This way, a trained sales person can measure customers’ feet and order sizes and/or styles not in the store’s inventory, he said. “And we can be reasonably sure it’s going to be the right shoe.”
“This is a tool to use to get as close as we can in cases where we can’t put the shoe on someone,” Carberry said. So far, about 25 percent of the store’s FootJoy sales have been shipped to customers who needed a pair not in stock, he said.
From FootJoy’s perspective, the system’s purpose is two-fold. “One is for marketing and sales, the other is for data collection and research and development,” Murphy said.
Not content to be the No. 1 golf shoe brand on the PGA Tour for 53 years in a row, FootJoy is adding to its already extensive database information gathered at trade shows since 1995. In May, it plans to introduce a new shoe based on those findings, Murphy said. “As we gain more data, we’ll launch others.”
The four-foot-wide, two-feet-deep device with a microwave-size control unit is too expensive to install everywhere FootJoy products are sold. However, the company hopes to drive down the manufacturing cost over the next two to three years and distribute more, Murphy said.
“Blue sky, we certainly think of the idea of having between 200 and 1,000 out with key retail partners,” Murphy said “We feel that’s attainable. It’s just a matter of when.”
The company has developed a similar system for hand measurements to speed its quest for the world’s most precise fitting glove. That was introduced last January at the PGA show in Orlando.
Despite the obvious potential of the device to transform the entire shoe industry, thoughts of selling or licensing the technology are on the back burner for now, Murphy said.
“That won’t happen for a while,” he said. “Right now we’re really interested in the proprietary nature of the technology and protecting that.”
