The Loop
Tony Finau's new signature Nike shoe is golf's best April Fools' joke
It's been a pretty good April Fools' Day in the wide world of sports. The U.S. Open announced plans to replace ball persons with ball puppies. Tom Brady faux retired. Our wildest dreams were indulged and our imaginations tempted, but at end of the day, the most elaborate ruse belonged to Tony Finau and Nike, who conspired to create the Finau1, golf's first (and probably) last fake signature shoe.
At almost three and a half minutes long—practically Return of the King by internet standards—the mini mockumentary tells the story of Nike's quest to build Finau a signature shoe that will provide his ankles with the support they need following his grisly injury while celebrating a hole-in-one at last year's Masters Par 3 Contest. After months of fictional and trial and error, the brains behind Nike golf—with a little help from Finau's own napkin sketches—finally gave birth to the most supportive golf shoe ever, replete with a unique Masters-themed colorway.
On their gotcha page, for anybody gullible enough to click it, Nike swears up and down that Finau will be wearing their new Snake Pack at Augusta, not this evergreen abomination. But if we were betting men (and some of us most certainly are), we'd plunk down a couple bucks on Finau to lace up these bad boys come Par 3 Wednesday...at least for that fateful seventh hole.