Do I have to wear golf shoes on the course or can I wear normal shoes?

However, over the past 10 years the waters have been muddied as more and more golf shoe designs resemble trainers/sneakers and it would be very difficult to identify which is which.

Even classic designs such as Adidas Samba, Nike Roche and even Air Force 1 Golf Shoes have been adapted to perform on the golf course. 

As a golfer your main concern with footwear on a golf course should not be looks but actually grip. Grip when swinging and hitting shots is essential to deliver power into the ball to create distance and accuracy, pushing up from the ground is a key fundamental taught by golf coaches and to do this you can’t be slipping about. Payntr Golf designed their golf shoes for this very reason, to help golfers get more power from using their legs. Flat bottomed shoes or trainers with no real grips on the sole will give you little chance of performing at your best, they will also be lethal in wet weather both swinging and navigating hilly areas.

The rules are probably outdated if we were honest, they were mainly used to protect greens and to make sure only the elite or affluent could play and not every Tom, Dick and Harry could turn up for a round. Since the introduction of Softspikes and then Spikeless golf shoes I think this has proven the old rules to be baseless around protecting greens.

But unfortunately, the rules are still in place at almost all golf courses, but rarely enforced.