What Is Payntr Golf? The Shoe Brand From the Designer Behind Tiger's First Nike Golf Shoes

Adam R. covers apparel, accessories, and golf culture for DORMIED. He has been tracking brand drops and collaborations since 2018.

Payntr Golf is a golf footwear company based in Portland, Oregon, founded by three long-time performance footwear experts on the idea that a golf shoe is equipment rather than fashion. Its president, Mike Forsey, spent three decades designing golf shoes for FootJoy, Reebok, Nike and Under Armour, and helped develop the first golf shoes for Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. Payntr unveiled its first shoe in February 2021, signed Jason Day in 2024 and Min Woo Lee in 2026, and sells shoes from about $160 to $240. It has also built shoes for a string of other golf brands.

In one sentence: Payntr Golf is a Portland golf shoe brand founded by footwear veterans Mike Forsey, Michael Glancy Jr. and David Paynter, which designs shoes around the biomechanics of the golf swing, counts Jason Day and Min Woo Lee as ambassadors, and builds shoes for other golf brands.

What Is Payntr Golf?

Payntr makes golf shoes and little else. The range covers spiked and spikeless shoes for men and women, slides and a training shoe, with socks, accessories and some apparel around them. Forsey has said that having golf shoes as its "sole focus" is what separates it from other footwear brands.

The company describes its shoes as equipment, and its design work starts from the biomechanics of the swing: the horizontal, vertical and rotational forces a golfer pushes into the ground. Its shoes use a propulsion plate and traction systems that Payntr says help golfers use those forces for balance, stability and speed through impact. The named technology includes a PMX Foam midsole, a PMX Speed PLT propulsion plate and, on the CHEF RX RS, a Fast Twist insert system. The brand's motto is "Performance Multiplied," and it plants a tree for every pair sold.

Who Founded Payntr Golf and Who Owns It?

Payntr has three founders, all of whom came from performance footwear.

Mike Forsey, co-founder and president, has more than 30 years in golf footwear and holds numerous footwear patents. He designed golf shoes at FootJoy, Reebok, Nike and Under Armour, developing signature models for Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. MyGolfSpy reports he had a hand in Tiger's first ten golf shoes at Nike, and Spieth has described working with Forsey as Under Armour's principal golf designer.

David Paynter, the brand's namesake, is a former professional cricketer who founded the original Payntr athletic footwear company in the UK.

Michael Glancy Jr., co-founder and creative director, spent eight years designing cleated shoes at Reebok and worked under Forsey launching Under Armour's golf shoe line.

Forsey and Paynter formed the company in 2020 and unveiled its first golf shoe, the X 001 F, in February 2021. Glancy, who had worked with Forsey at Under Armour, joined as the third partner.

The company is privately held, but it is no longer owned by its founders alone. Jason Day took an equity stake in March 2024, on terms that were not disclosed. In 2025 Payntr moved from licensing the Payntr name to owning the intellectual property outright. And in February 2026, 8AM Golf, the holding company whose portfolio includes GOLF Magazine, True Spec and Miura, took what it called a significant equity stake. The founders still run the business, with Forsey as president.

What Does Payntr Sell and What Does It Cost?

Prices on Payntr's own site as of October 2026:

That sits a little below Sun Day Red's footwear, which runs from $175 to $275.

Payntr sells direct through its own site and through national retailers: the CHEF RX RS launched at DICK'S Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy and PGA TOUR Superstore as well as select retailers. As we noted when Payntr named those accounts, two of the three are the same company, since DICK'S owns Golf Galaxy. Outside the United States, the brand has distribution in Europe, Asia, Australia and South Africa.

Which Tour Players Wear Payntr?

Payntr's PGA Tour ambassadors include Jason Day, Min Woo Lee, Sam Burns and Isaiah Salinda, and Day and Lee both have their own shoes.

Jason Day joined in March 2024 as both an ambassador and a part-owner, and co-designed the Eighty Seven SC, which launched that year and remains in the range.

Min Woo Lee joined in January 2026. A shoe launched with his signing nearly topped MyGolfSpy's 2026 spiked rankings, and on 1 September Payntr released what it calls his first signature shoe, the $240 CHEF RX RS. The name comes from Lee's nickname, the Chef, which grew out of his "let him cook" social media captions, and Payntr says Lee worked on the fit, traction, responsiveness and look and wear-tested it as it was refined.

DORMIED's WITB database tracks clubs, balls and putters rather than footwear, so we do not publish counts of how many tour players wear Payntr.

Why Do Other Golf Brands Use Payntr to Make Their Shoes?

Payntr's name also appears on a lot of other brands' shoes.

Bad Birdie moved into footwear by renting Payntr's engineering rather than building its own. Ghost Golf, a brand whose first product was a magnetic towel, launched the $200 Ghost Golf Reaper SL by Payntr Golf in August. Payntr has also collaborated with Students, Sugarloaf Social Club and Jones, and debuted a collaboration with Khalhon, the Seoul golf brand, at the Hypegolf Clubhouse pop-up in New York. Its site currently carries a sock made with Del Campo.

The appeal runs both ways. A brand with an audience but no footwear operation gets a shoe with a performance claim behind it, and Payntr gets its technology in front of that brand's customers.

How Is Payntr Trending on the DORMIED Index?

Source: DORMIED Index, August 2026 snapshot. The DI score is a brand's global search interest relative to the most-searched golf brand, which scores 100.

Twenty-second of 215 puts Payntr inside the top 25 brands we track, and it got there quickly: up 11 places in a year, with monthly searches up from 27,100 to 40,500. The quarter was softer, down 12.6 percent. The CHEF RX RS launched after this snapshot, so its effect is not yet in these numbers.

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