A year ago, the idea that Sun Day Red would be cited as a Best Low-Profile spikeless winner in MyGolfSpy's Most Wanted testing would have read as a press release fever dream. The brand barely had distribution. Now the Presidio is sharing a podium with Skechers and Nike in the waterproof category.
MyGolfSpy's 2026 waterproof shoe roundup placed the Sun Day Red Presidio alongside the Skechers Blade Tour (Best Overall Spiked, a perfect 15/15 in waterproofing) and Nike's Victory Pro 4 (the Scottie Scheffler shoe that finally pulled Nike Golf out of its decade-long footwear slump). The Presidio earned the Best Low-Profile spikeless nod with above-average waterproofing, credited to a patterned upper that sheds water and TPU film reinforcements that block intrusion. That is a real construction note, not a marketing line.
What makes this interesting is not the shoe itself. It is the company it is keeping. Skechers and Nike are footwear businesses that happen to make golf shoes. Sun Day Red is an apparel brand built around one player that decided, somewhere in its second year, that footwear was going to be a real category rather than a logo exercise. The Presidio sitting in a waterproof comparison against the two most credible names in golf footwear suggests TaylorMade's parent strategy here is working: build the shoe like a shoe company would, then let the editorial coverage do what the marketing budget can't.
The context behind the win is less flattering. Sun Day Red's DORMIED Index movement is down 33% month over month, and the brand sits at #8 globally largely on the residual heat of a launch year that is now well behind it. The novelty has worn off. The Tiger tax, the willingness of consumers to pay a premium because the logo is the logo, is no longer doing the heavy lifting. What replaces it is the boring stuff: does the product test well, does it get into independent pro shops, does it sit credibly next to the Nikes and FootJoys of the world on a wall. The Presidio result is evidence that the answer is starting to be yes.
There is also a quiet structural read here for the broader category. Footwear has become the most contested ground in golf apparel because it is the only piece a golfer will replace yearly, regardless of fit drift. Polos last three seasons. Shoes last one. Brands that figure out footwear get a recurring revenue line that hats and quarter-zips cannot match. Malbon has flirted with it through collabs. G/FORE built an entire identity on it. TravisMathew is reportedly working on a proper footwear push. Sun Day Red getting independent validation from MyGolfSpy in year two is the kind of milestone that justifies the category investment to whoever signs off on the budget at TaylorMade.
The DI score will keep sliding for a while. That is what happens to launch-driven brands once the launch story ends. The question for Sun Day Red has always been whether anything sits underneath the Tiger marketing, and the Presidio result is the first piece of evidence that something might. Watch the fall drops, watch whether the Presidio gets a follow-up that improves rather than reskins, and watch whether the brand starts showing up on tour caddies before it shows up on tour players. That is usually the order these things happen in.
