In many physical activities, such as in the playing of golf, it is common practice for participants to wear sport shoes, the soles and heels of which are provided with earth-engaging spikes. Spiked shoes are employed in such activities to prevent slippage and undesired relative movement of the shoes and the earth and thereby provide their wearers with sure footing while swinging a club.
Shoe spikes are, most commonly, elongate, downwardly convergent truncated conical members with suitable mounting means at their upper, or base, ends. The mounting means commonly include substantially flat, radially outwardly projecting stop flanges that engage the shoe sole at and about the upper, or base ends of the spikes, vertical threaded mounting posts that project upwardly from the stop flanges into the shoe sole, and mounting plates within the sole structures of the shoes with which the spikes are related and into which the posts are threadedly engaged.
While spiked shoes generally attain their intended end results, they are not without serious shortcomings.
A most serious shortcoming found in spiked shoes is the tendency for soil and other debris, such as grass and similar vegetable matter, to collect and become compacted on and about the spikes, adjacent the soles and heels of the shoes. The collection of compacted soil and other debris on and about the spike creates bulbous enlargements, or chunks, of soil on and about the spikes and at the soles and heels of the shoes. Such enlargements interfere with the spikes' capacity to perform their intended function and seriously impair the ability of the wearers of such shoes to attain and/or maintain a desired, secure footing, especially while swinging a club.
In the sport of golf, many missed shots, twisted ankles and strained or fatigued muscles are directly attributable to the fouling of the spikes of golfers' shoes in the manner set forth above.
In addition to the foregoing, the tendency of shoe spikes to collect and become fouled with debris results in the tendency of spiked shoes to carry and transport debris from one place to another. In the case of golf, it is not infrequent that clean and carefully manicured greens become fouled and littered with bits of debris transported from roughs and freeways by the spiked shoes of golfers. Further, it is not uncommon that clubhouses and other facilities at golf courses become defaced and fouled by debris which is transported by golfers' spiked shoes.
The problems mentioned above are sufficiently serious for many golfing facilities to demand that golfers clean debris from their shoes before advancing onto greens of golf courses and before entering various buildings and the like made available to golfers.
To the above end, special shoe cleaning tools in the nature of brushes and/or scrapers have become standard golfing equipment.