Footjoy Classics - The End of an Era

We got an email from the Footjoy VP of Sales about closing the Footjoy factory in Brockton MA. I have tried to see that factory twice and wasn't successful due to scheduling conflicts, but it was the last factory in the New England area to manufacture shoes.

By the time of the Civil War, Massachusetts was the center of the shoe and boot industry in the U.S. The New England area held on to that dominance until 1950. After WWII countries such as Spain, Brazil and Korea began manufacturing shoes at substantially lower prices than the factories in New England, which started to close in the 1960s. Imported shoes went from a stream in 1968 (22% of shoe sales) to an ocean by the late 1990s (92% of U.S. shoe sales) with China accounting for the lion's share of these imports.

FootJoy's shoe factory was the last remaining footwear production facility in a city that was once known as the "Shoe Capital of the World" in the early 1900s. Brockton's collection of footwear factories once supplied over 50 percent of all domestic footwear in the United States.

Factories such as Rockport, Dexter, Florsheim and now Footjoy were all legacies of that New England dominance. New Balance still makes some of their high end running shoes in the U.S. but not their golf shoes.

Footjoy used hand-crafting to make their Classics Tour and Dry Premier shoe lines. Noted for their leather soles, stiff support and longevity Footjoy Classics were distinctive and beautiful. They were also a throwback to a time when handmade leather shoes were de rigueur at country clubs and golf was the sport of rich, white men. Times have changed.

"This was a very difficult decision made necessary by the declining demand for premium welted, leather soled golf footwear," said Jim Connor, President of FootJoy. "While this factory produced a small portion of our worldwide supply of golf shoes, some of our craftsmen and women were from several generations of shoe makers. All of us at FootJoy are deeply saddened by this outcome."

I felt a wave of regret after reading this email. Although Charlie was not a customer for Footjoy Classics Tour shoes- at $300 a pair they were special order only - he taught me why these shoes cost what they did.