adidas MC80: Timeless Style, Modern Performance

As the song goes, everything old is new again. If you bother to step back and take notice of things, you’ll often find that fashion, design, and even music go through cyclical phases and reemerges some time later.

As is the case with the recent resurgence in the timeless, dress-style golf shoe that brands like G/FORE, FootJoy and—most relevant here—adidas have brought back to the forefront.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The MC80 is adidas’ modern interpretation of this classic shoe, and features a spikeless design that’s paired with a premium leather upper and BOOST midsole. And while these may look like the shoes that Sam Snead wore back in the 50s, I can guarantee you that they perform and feel better than anything he ever played in.

As mentioned, starting at the top is perhaps the most important of this traditional design: the leather upper section. Regardless of which of the four colorways—Core Black, Cloud White (pictured below), Off White with Collegiate Navy or Cloud White with Core Black—you go with, they each feature a premium leather construction with decorative perforations. I particularly appreciated the thinner laces, which are further complemented by an adidas shoe lace tag and heel-placed three stripe logo, which really emphasize the traditional design of the MC80s.

What’s not visually noticeable, however, may be the most important part of the MC80s. The midsole features their reputable BOOST midsole. If you’re not familiar with this technology, adidas has developed the ultimate athletic performance material. Comfort and reactive materials were previously mutually exclusive; while comfort would absorb energy, reactive materials sought to rebound energy. BOOST does both and, as a result, it makes it perfectly suited for golf shoes, where you need comfort while walking between shots, but also require performance when getting ready for that aggressive drive.

Finally, at the foundation of the MC80 is a spikeless traction pattern.

I wore the MC80s straight out of the box and couldn’t have been more pleased. These are not your father’s leather shoes that require a few sacrificial blisters before they’re broken and play ready. Instead, the soft leather is—like I found out—ready to go straight from a box to the course.

And like every adidas I’ve tested recently, the ZG21, TOUR360 22, and ZG23, the MC80s performed equally well. Yes, they don’t have spikes, so they may not be my first option on days where the ground is damp, wet and slippery, but I never spun out or lost my footing when hitting any shots during numerous late summer/early fall rounds. And that may be due to the most visible technology on the sole—the TORSION bar, which adds some structural reinforcement to the sole so you can pivot and shift pressure into each foot without the shoe compressing and losing stability.

I’ve been dying to add a pair of these more traditional styled golf shoes to my collection, but I PTSD from my first pair of golf shoes has lingered—that fear of sore feet and heavy shoes is hard to shake. But the first round in the MC80s freed me from my concerns. They look good, feel good, and play good.

Cover Image via Adidas