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Who is MJ?
Who doesn’t know Michael Jordan? A sportsman who has managed to cross the boundaries of basketball becoming one of the most influential and important figures in the world of sport in general.
Despite his countless successes and achievements, the boy born in 1963 had to work hard to get to the NBA, proving that with hard work you get results. In fact, Jordan’s basketball journey began with his exclusion from the main team of his High School because he was seen as too young and unsuitable to play on the school’s first team.
Michael is scarred by this decision and, despite the tears and sadness, he begins to train harder and harder and more consistently to be able to prove that he is capable of playing with his strongest peers. Destiny will also come to him because in those years Jordan grows almost 20 centimeters in a single summer that will allow him to realize his dream of playing for Laney High School.
From this moment on, his talent began to blossom, so much so that he won some individual awards such as the MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Tournament that guaranteed him to continue his career in college.
Michael, after much deliberation, decides to go to the University of North Carolina, his home state, where he meets a college basketball legend; coach Dean Smith.
Smith’s harsh system is renowned for scaring many college players, but certainly not Jordan who together with James Worthy, a boy who will also shine in the NBA in Los Angeles together with Magic Johnson, create a duo of rare danger on the basketball court that will allow North Carolina to reach the NCAA finals where Michael scores one of the most important shots of his career to win his team and get him noticed more and more by the NBA.
Thanks to his tenacity, talent and determination, the long-awaited day of the NBA Draft arrived and on June 19, 1984, Michael was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the third overall pick.
From that day on, the young boy from North Carolina won 6 NBA championship titles with the Bulls, 5 MVP awards, 1 defensive player of the year and 10 times the award for best scorer of the season. His important goals never stopped at the basketball court, Jordan has managed to create a new cultural movement even starting from shoes so much so that his iconic Air Jordan have become a point of reference for all boys and girls who aspire to emulate his game movements and we have written a separate article about it .
MJ’s magic touch in golf, a passion become business
To the origin of the dream
Although it was basketball that led Michael to earn an indescribable fame, it is good to remember that Jordan tried several sports throughout his life before finding his true calling: from baseball to football, basketball was only the third choice of the boy from North Carolina.
And what does golf have to do with it?
Golf has been and still is a sport that Michael loves very much, so much so that he used it in his career years as an outlet from the hard training sessions and the pressure of matches until it has become much more than just a hobby, but let’s go in order.
It was 1984 when, even before entering the NBA in September of the same year, his college roommate Buzz Peterson was great friends with a future promising golfer, Davis Love III. The latter invited Buzz to play with him, who accepted the invitation and proposed it to young Michael. That afternoon Jordan only tried a few shots with the ball and realized that it wasn’t as simple as he could think of playing the sport, so he stubbornly got stubborn and, as happened in high school, Michael couldn’t accept the defeat of not being able to do something. He bought a set of used irons and began to go to golf courses more regularly, improving his technique and scores every day.
Does golf conquer MJ or does MJ conquer golf?
Michael’s competitiveness and tenacity led him to turn golf from a simple pastime, to one of his many obsessions.
An example of this passion dates back to 1992. That year saw the Olympics in Barcelona, where the United States created the famous basketball “Dream Team” with some of the greatest NBA players of all time, including Michael Jordan. Throughout the sporting event, Jordan used to do two main things: training for matches and playing golf with other teammates.
Sportsmen of this caliber, those who reach great heights and become immortal are obsessive, just like MJ. The obsession with perfection cannot be linked only to basketball if we talk about Jordan, he wants to be the best in everything so much so that the world of golf also becomes a fixation starting simply from an outing with two friends from university.
An ambitious project: the Groove XXIII
We have found that Jordan and golf are inseparable. If the great basketball player managed to hang up his basketball shoes at some point, we can’t say the same thing about golf.
For this reason, he did not stop only at practicing this sport, but at building a real personal camp: the Groove XXIII in Florida.
This immense facility that includes an 18-hole course, a clubhouse, a training ground, an educational facility, changing rooms, lounge areas and a professional golf shop takes its name from the citrus orchard that makes the Hobe Sound area famous for which it is located.
The project was entrusted to architect Bobby Weed, who decided to create a court that would echo the structure of the Shinnecock Hills club on Long Island, which is one of the oldest and best-known courts in the USA and home to the US Open in 2018. The luxury, state-of-the-art technology and impeccable amenities of the center demonstrate how much Jordan’s love of golf has become established and how it is a fundamental aspect of his life both as a hobby and as a business investment.
Beyond sports: Michael Jordan is a global brand
We have seen so far how Jordan’s love for golf was born and how far he has come even by building a large course of a prestige that is difficult to describe, but that’s not all.
Let’s remember that the great influence that Michael has managed to transmit to so many generations of sportsmen is linked to his figure and his work ethic and how has he managed to transmit it since the beginning of his basketball career? With shoes.
Michael signed a contract with Nike in 1985 that allowed the promising basketball player to make his first line of shoes.
The Air Jordan 1 is still one of the most prestigious and iconic gaming shoes and more. They also managed to make their way outside the basketball courts because the well-known motto “be like Mike” was not limited only to sport, but referred and still refers to all those who want to chase a dream and work hard to achieve it.
Following their incredible success, all the subsequent models that were designed by Jordan together with Nike were also able to transform a simple shoe into an object that represents a thought and a cultural movement that has influenced fashion, sports, lifestyle and much more.
Jordan as a brand, especially in recent years, has managed to expand its success and fame also thanks to the creation of footwear and clothing strictly designed for specific sports: from running, to tennis to the much-loved golf for Michael. Many Air Jordan models, such as the 1, 6 or 11 o’clock, have been adapted for golf courses, demonstrating how the famous silhouettes of its shoes are perfectly adaptable to any context.
In this article we want to tell you specifically about a precise model that has lived a long-lived history full of reinterpretations: the Air Jordan 1 Patent Bred.
Photo credit: StockX
They are a model that has been repurposed many times over the years and its peculiarity is that it refers to the first model made by Mike with Nike, so it is not surprising that the OG colorway of 1895 is back again in 2021. This shoe, compared to the original, is characterized by patent leather that has created contrasting opinions between those who believe that it is the best reinterpretation on the market and those who are not satisfied because they are more tied to a conservative idea of the iconic model.
After this popular reinterpretation of the original ’85 shoe, in 2024 another version of this completely different shoe was launched: Air Jordan 1 Mule Golf Bred.
Photo credit: Nike
Air Jordan 1 Mule Golf Bred
Always made with the iconic colorways of the original “Bred” model, this shoe features a slip-on silhouette without laces and without heels, completely revolutionizing the aesthetics of the classic model of this shoe.
The complete removal of laces and eyelets leaving the elegant black leather upper in evidence, the presence of the iconic Jumpman logo and the “golf” brand make the shoe a completely new object in the Jordan world, but with clear classic references. The design is completed by a white midsole and a sole designed specifically for golf courses, guaranteeing grip and above all functionality.
Sole Air Jordan 1 Mule Golf Bred
Photo credit: Nike
The softness of the memory foam placed directly under the foot offers good cushioning, the leather has small holes to improve breathability and the Mule-style structure has been designed to be able to wear the shoe without the use of the hands.
Jordan brand continues to demonstrate its revolution and its attention to every possible need of its customers.
The iconic line of Air Jordans that have made the figure of Michael immortal, are allowing him, especially in the modern era, to open up to new horizons trying to create products that know how to be revolutionary and original, remaining linked to the uniqueness and popularity of those first shoes that Jordan wore while bewitching basketball spectators with his movements and his skill.
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