I recently headed to Boston to learn more about how the budding golf shoe brand PAYNTR designs its products.

The short 60-minute flight and the subsequent chat with Mike Glancy, co-founder of PAYNTR, left me pondering how the small details can make a big difference.

Ever heard of the infamous Mount Erebus disaster? A passenger jet took off from New Zealand, heading to Antarctica. A small miscalculation in degree coordinates (two degrees, to be exact) caused the flight path to end up 28 miles east of the final destination and ultimately ended in the plane crashing into Mount Erebus, an active volcano.

Two degrees. Twenty-eight miles.

That’s just one example of how the smallest changes can make a huge difference.

A strike that is a few millimeters above, below, or to either side of the center of the clubface can have drastic effects on the flight of your golf ball.

Small details, drastic effects.

That’s the driving force behind PAYNTR’s exponential success. The small, scrappy team led by Mike Glancy and Mike Forsey does a few small things differently than the rest of the golf shoe industry.

Not because they need to. Because they want to. When your only mission is to build the best damn golf shoe on the planet, every little thing you have over your competitors is crucial to slaying the proverbial golf shoe-wearing dragon.

I spent a few hours with Glancy in the PAYNTR Golf design studio to nail down exactly what it is that makes PAYNTR Golf’s approach so different and how that difference is paying literal dividends for the brand and performance dividends for the golfer.

The expertise

If you read my last piece on PAYNTR Golf, you know by now that Glancy and Forsey have worked at just about every shoe brand on the planet. NIKE, Reebok, Under Armour and FootJoy, just to name a few.

“I truly believe all my years designing cleated footwear helped me push golf innovation,” said Glancy. “We (Mike and I) have over 50 years of footwear experience being at the biggest brands in the world and seeing what works and what can be streamlined.”

The experience is invaluable, something that you can’t put a number on. Countless hours. Countless failures. But even more successes.

Fingerprints from each of the brands Glancy and Forsey have worked at can be found in each pair of PAYNTR Golf shoes they craft.

If it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at something, the combined 50 years of experience (438,000 hours) that Glancy and Forsey share surely puts them up there with the brightest, most experienced veterans in the footwear industry.

Although I don’t know that they would call themselves “footwear masters.” Not because they aren’t good enough. But because “good enough” is never good enough for PAYNTR Golf.

If Glancy and Forsey have already climbed footwear’s Mount Everest (or in this case, Mount Erebus), they decided it would be fun to rappel off the backside, ditch their cushy corporate jobs and try to summit it again by starting their own brand.

That’s the PAYNTR difference.

The agility

A brief walk around the PAYNTR Golf design studio makes it clear that Glancy is an athlete. A helmet from his days as a college lacrosse player is displayed proudly behind his desk. Of the millions of lessons to be learned from athletics, perhaps the most pertinent one is agility.

Agility itself describes both the why and how PAYNTR Golf was able to move up the ranks so quickly in an overcrowded footwear market.

It falls right in line with words like flexibility or nimbleness. Or, in other words, the things that aren’t afforded to billion-dollar corporations with hundreds or thousands of stakeholders to satisfy.

PAYNTR Golf, while growing rapidly, is still what most would consider a “small” business. A few full-time employees, a few outsourced tasks, but a whole lot of resolve.

Where big brands have hoops to jump through for almost every project, the agility of the PAYNTR Golf team allows them to be reactive. When Jason Day rocked a pair of special Match Day shoes with gator print earlier this year, the internet clamored for a way to buy them.

Just four months later, the shoe was made available for retail, an unexpected moment that turned into one of PAYNTR’s most successful drops of the year.

It’s a process that would have taken big brands a whole product cycle to do. But thanks to PAYNTR’s agility, they were able to take a special project and bring it to retail in a matter of months.

That’s unheard of in an industry that leans so heavily on lead time that brands often have to plan two to three years in advance to get their products onto shelves.

Better products to the consumer within a better timeframe. The PAYNTR difference strikes again.

The athlete involvement

Almost every shoe brand has signature athletes. But few, if any, of those brands involve their athletes to the level that PAYNTR Golf does.

This is how most athlete shoe meetings go. The brand shows them a sketch or design (or even a finished prototype) and they get a thumbs up from said athlete. It’s as uninvolved as it gets.

Not for PAYTNR. We’ve already spoken at length about the work they did with Jason Day on the Speed Classic lineup of golf shoes. “The relationship I have now with Jason Day and the true collaboration we share is so cool,” said Glancy.

“Our strength lies with the ability to partner with pros and influencers that really embody our brand,” Glancy continued. “Our partners don’t simply receive a box of shoes every season. They are the designers, the innovators,  trendsetters, and weartesters of any new project or sample.”

As we speak, PAYNTR is working with an unnamed athlete (you’ll know who soon enough) on a new signature golf shoe. It’s not one of those situations where they just slap their name on it and call it a day.

In Glancy’s words, they’re literally building this golfer “the perfect golf shoe for them.”

“We are hungry for the collaboration. Encourage it, almost demand it in a way. Why would we not? These players, like Jason Day and the world-class team we have coming on board in 2026, have their fingerprints and design DNA all over our product,” Glancy said. “It’s what makes our product so special and gives consumers so much trust in the footwear they buy from PAYNTR Golf.”

And that level of involvement from the world’s best athletes filters down into each pair of shoes PAYNTR produces.

PAYNTR Golf shoes are built for the best golfers in the world and those who want to become them.

That’s the PAYNTR difference in action.

The customer experience

Your product is only as good as how you treat your customers. Because PAYNTR Golf isn’t just selling golf shoes. They’re selling themselves as a brand, too. They’ve got to give you every reason to try them over legacy names like FootJoy and adidas, who have dominated the space for decades.

They do this through creating a customer experience that’s as good as you’ll find.

Did you know PAYNTR Golf has never denied a return? Not once have they stopped a golfer (although there are very few of them) from sending back a pair of their shoes.

They’ve got dedicated customer service reps who can be reached over the phone or via email, just to ensure that when a golfer has their first PAYNTR Golf experience, it’s a good one.

When you stand behind the quality of your product, this is how you treat your customers.

So when you send in a pair of obviously worn PAYNTR Golf shoes and they take them back, no questions asked? That’s the PAYNTR difference talking.

The difference

Let’s end where we started.

Small details make a big difference.

At each stop in their footwear journeys, Glancy and Forsey have gathered intel on what works and what doesn’t. Small things that have a lasting impact.

And when you put all those small things together? You’ve got a chance to do something really special.

So the next time (or the first time) you try a pair of PAYNTR Golf footwear, take a second to notice the small details. The insole. The eyelets. The presentation of the box. The smell of the leather and glue.

It’s apparent to me, as it should be to you, that PAYNTR is maniacal about making the perfect pair of golf shoes. That’s the PAYNTR difference.

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