Peak Performance: A Wider Foot Base Adds Power to Your Swing

Welcome to our Peak Performance series, where we take a closer look at the five key advantages SQAIRZ shoes deliver: a wider foot base, better balance, increased swing speed, greater distance, and improved comfort. Each provides an essential link in the chain of movement that produces your strongest game—from the ground up. 

What creates a powerful golf swing? Is it upper body strength? A high-tech golf club? Technical drills? It could be all of the above—but no approach will be fully effective without the foundational support of footwear specifically designed to drive power into your swing. 

Your shoes do more than walk you around the course; they’re your connection with the ground and the secret to elevating your game. “If you sat with your feet up and tried to hit a golf ball, it wouldn’t go too far because you need the ground under your feet,” explains SQAIRZ founder Robert (Bob) Winskowicz. “That’s true in any land-based sport. People think that if someone can throw a football sixty yards, he's got great arm speed, but he wouldn't have achieved that speed without his connection to the ground.”

This connection is imperative to maximizing what’s known as the “ground reaction force.” According to Newton’s third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you swing a golf club, the weight of your body and the additional force generated by the movement exert a downward pressure on the ground, which the ground returns to you in equal measure. “Your feet are the conduit with the ground,” Bob says. “The club is the conduit between you and the ball, and the ball is the recipient of the energy.”

SQAIRZ shoes help you harness that kinetic energy to send the ball sailing down the fairway. And one of the most crucial contributors to their power-producing potential is a humble and under-appreciated shoe component: the toe box. 

More toe room, more power

A shoe’s toe box surrounds and supports the toes and metatarsal bones of the upper foot. Most golf shoes have a rounded toe box that squeezes your toes into unnatural angles, which can redistribute your weight, change your walking gait and golf stance, and impair your balance. 

SQAIRZ shoes do the opposite, molding the shape of the toe box to your foot. “By squaring off the toe, our shoes expand the base under the ball of the foot so that it’s wider than any other shoe,” Bob says. “You can relax your toes, and that’s significant because as soon as you start adding tension, you’re restricting the overall functionality of the foot and ankle.”

To appreciate the importance of relaxed toes, try the following exercise. Without shoes on, sit in a chair and cross one leg over the other so that one foot is dangling and relaxed. Jiggle the crossed-over leg up and down and observe how your foot wobbles comfortably from the ankle joint. Now squeeze the toes on that foot together and jiggle your leg again. Notice how the foot wobbles far less? That’s because your clenched toes are sending tension through the foot to your ankle, restricting the movement. 

Squeezing your toes into traditional golf shoes creates the same tension, whereas SQAIRZ’s squared toe box gives them the space to spread naturally. “Once your toes are sitting comfortably, your foot can properly function,” Bob says. “You get a greater range of motion and feeling for the ground.” 

The result is better balance, whether walking on slippery surfaces or smashing a drive, and a solid ground connection that adds power to your swing. You’ll feel the difference the moment you put on a pair of SQAIRZ shoes, and you’ll see the difference on the course.

Check out our next post in this series to learn more about how SQAIRZ delivers balance and stability that has a measurable impact on your swing speed and distance.