EASTSIDE GOLF'S NEXT NIKE SHOE HIDES ITS NAME IN THE PANEL

A support panel on the inside of Eastside Golf's next Nike golf shoe reads NKE0GRVTY. That is not a stock Nike part number. The code surfaced across leaked product photos in early August, and on Monday the brand's Instagram put a name to it, teasing "Like Never Before: Zero Gravity coming soon" in a joint post with Nike. The shoe is the Nike NEXT% Tour 3, the third footwear collaboration between the two labels since 2024, and that panel is the only place in the entire collection where the name has ever been printed.

A Support Panel Spells Out Zero Gravity's Real Name

Nike's own catalog number for the shoe is IO4663 001, but the branding across the upper tells a different story. One support panel carries "ESG006," Eastside Golf's internal sequence for its sixth footwear project. The other reads "NKE0GRVTY," the code Zero Gravity draws its name from. The upper mixes textured mesh with synthetic overlays across a mostly black base, breaking into purple, blue green, and metallic gold at the tongue and heel. An iridescent Swoosh runs the lateral side, carrying a repeating Eastside Golf script instead of the plain Nike wordmark. Gold hardware threads the lacing system, a golfer logo is embroidered on the tongue, and the outsole drops to a translucent purple with rotational traction pods in place of the fixed tour spikes on the label's earlier release. It is built on the NEXT% Tour platform, Nike's spike sole for tournament play, not the spikeless casual line the brand has also used for Eastside Golf drops.

Earl Cooper Was Detroit Golf Club's First Black PGA Teaching Pro

Eastside Golf was not built by a streetwear label looking for a golf angle. Earl Cooper and Olajuwon Ajanaku, Morehouse College graduates from the classes of 2011 and 2012, founded the brand in 2019 after Cooper had already become the first Black PGA Teaching Professional at Detroit Golf Club. That credential is why Nike treats the label as a design partner rather than a licensee, the same distinction that lets Aimé Leon Dore's FootJoy Premiere Series capsule speak golf fluently instead of borrowing the sport's uniform for a lookbook. Both brands got real product decisions, not just a colorway pass, because someone in the room actually plays the game for a living.

Two Collaborations Landed in 2024 and 2025. This Is Collab Three.

The first Nike footwear release, Everyone's Game, arrived in 2024 with the Nike Air Max 1 '86 OG and the Nike Air Zoom Victory Tour 3, each shipping with three double sided, removable Swoosh charms, including a maroon and white pair for Morehouse and a blue and white pair for Spelman College. The second, Take Flight, released through Eastside Golf's own channels on September 25, 2025, then went wide on October 2 through Nike.com, DICK'S Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy, and Pebble Beach Company stores, backed by a pop up at 131 Greene Street in New York. It paired the spikeless Air Max Plus G, its cage graphic spelling "Eastside" on one side and "Golf" on the other, with the tour spiked Victory Tour 4 in a cloud textured upper and blue chrome accents. Zero Gravity's teaser landed almost exactly one year after that September 25 date, and the collaboration should not be confused with the separate Jordan Brand partnership, Change 1961, which put Eastside Golf branding on the Air Jordan I High G, the Jordan Retro 6 G NRG, and the Jordan ADG 4 earlier this year. Same company, different division, different shoe entirely. Also worth tracking against golf's other active apparel lane: the Adidas Golf x Metalwood Studio Y2K capsule that shipped six pieces built around a similar streetwear first, performance second logic.

A Golf Shoe Priced Like a Golf Shoe, Not a Sneaker Flip

Nike and Eastside Golf have set the Zero Gravity NEXT% Tour 3 at 200 dollars, unisex sizing, releasing Fall 2026 through Eastside Golf, Nike, and select retailers in store and online. That price sits at tour cleat level, not resale hype level, which tracks with a build on Nike's spiked competition platform rather than the spikeless Air Max Plus G that carried more of the label's streetwear crossover audience last year. The Air Max 1 and Air Max Plus G colorways from the first two drops moved as much through Grailed and StockX as through pro shops. A performance sole with rotational traction pods and a 200 dollar tag reads as a shoe built to be played in first and photographed second, which is a harder sell to flippers but the more honest one for a label whose founder still teaches lessons for a living. Buy it to play golf. The panel code already told you the rest.