I’ll level with you. I had never heard of the Alma Mater shoe brand before this nice brown box landed on my doorstep. Wanting to know what I was getting into, I put the unopened box aside and sparked up the Google machine to find out just what these shoes were all about.
Apparently, Alma Mater has a reputation for premium handcrafted luxury sneakers with a youthful, hipster vibe.
Being neither youthful nor a hipster, it’s no wonder I’d never heard of them.
Didn’t stop me from opening the box, though. And I’m glad I did. These new golf shoes from Alma Mater aren’t cheap but if you’re a walking golfer (and even if you’re not), they’re definitely worthy of your attention.
Who is Alma Mater and why a golf shoe?
Alma Mater was established in Southern California in 2017. Co-founders Eric Sarin and Beatriz Gomez Martinez were footwear industry veterans. Sarin designed shoes for adidas, PUMA and Skechers, while Gomez Martinez spent 20 years in operations at adidas and The Walking Company. The rest of Alma Mater’s team came from footwear companies such as K-Swiss, Reebok, Fila and Lodger.
With baseball star Alex Rodriguez as an early investor, Alma Mater focused on small-batch production of sneakers, slippers and loafers. It also forged partnerships with several high-profile pro athletes, which is where Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer enters the story.
Poyer was an early fan of Alma Mater and invited the team to his golf tournament in Oregon. At that event, Poyer suggested that Alma Mater should go ahead and make a really good golf shoe.
Two years later, the Alma Mater Beta was born.
The Beta Longwing and Beta Lite
Alma Mater launched its new golf shoe line this past September with two spikeless models. The Alma Mater Beta Longwing is a premium leather wingtip with an athletic flair. The Beta Lite is, as the name suggests, lighter weight with even more of an athletic flair.
The hook for Alma Mater golf shoes is what the company calls 3Pe Technology, or “three-piece engineering.”
Those three pieces are the Gripper
, the Slipper and the Zipper.
Yes, they actually did trademark them.
The Gripper is the aggressive outsole which, according to Alma Mater, is traction-mapped to how golfers actually move. The Slipper midsole and insole is made from nitrogen-improved supercritical foam. Really.
I had to look that one up and, in the world of footwear, nitrogen-improved supercritical foam really is a thing. Nitrogen is injected into polymers under extreme temperature and pressure. At that point, the nitrogen becomes supercritical (it behaves like both a liquid and a gas). When the pressure drops, the gas expands and forms tiny, uniform bubbles in the polymer. That creates a lightweight, durable foam for cushioning and energy return.
Seriously, folks, at what other golf website are you going to get a science lesson like that?
The Zipper is the wide sidewall that locks the shoe together into a single platform. The company says it makes the cushioning, traction and stability all work together.
Did Alma Mater accomplish what Jordan Poyer wanted?
As a simple golf writer, I can’t attest to the chemistry or any of the other supercritical footwear jargon. However, after two seven-mile hikes with my trusty golfing implements, I can say these Alma Mater golf shoes check my three key golf shoe boxes.
They’re comfy, colorful and, most importantly, stable.
As for quality, they’re built like a friggin’ tank.
The Gripper does what it’s supposed to do as does the Zipper. Together, they make the Beta Longwing one of the most stable golf shoes I’ve tested this year (I did not test the Beta Lite). The Slipper makes for a comfortable fit. The company says the interior is engineered with bio-mapped shaping and features a breathable knit lining. I’ll give it high marks for comfort but the heel extension on the knit lining is problematic without a shoehorn.
The White/Sky colorway is colorful enough for this sexagenarian and the upper is made from soft, premium leather and waterproof nubuck. The Sky/Navy colorway is for those who are really into powder blue. The Beta Lite combines a black upper with a blue ring and a lot of pink on the sole.
Alma Mater does say its shoes are “equally at home on the course and beyond.” I can’t really see it as a casual walking-around shoe but, then again, I’m not a youthful hipster.
Along with Poyer, Alma Mater has a who’s who of athlete ambassadors. The list includes former Toronto Blue Jays slugger Joe Carter, ex-NHL players Joe Pavelski, James Wisniewski, Brad May and Terry Yake, and two-time NBA champion J.R. Smith who, after retiring, went back to college at North Carolina A&T and joined the golf team.
Alma Mater price and availability
Alma Mater currently has three shoe offerings: the Beta Longwing in the two colorways mentioned and the Beta Lite in Black/Flare. We’ve learned the company will be coming out with a bag/shoe collaboration with Sun Mountain in December, and we presume more color options will be available in the coming months.
Both the Alma Mater Beta Longwing and Beta Lite are available in sizes 8 through 12 in half-size increments and in 13 through 16 in full-size increments. For the wide-foot crowd, they only come in one width. The toe box is quite roomy, if that helps.
As mentioned, while these Alma Mater golf shoes are incredibly well-made and sturdy, they aren’t cheap. A pair will run you $288.
They’re available at the Alma Mater website.
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