Bluegrass Fairway is a small workshop in Louisville, Kentucky making leather, Harris Tweed and waxed canvas golf goods by hand — headcovers, yardage book covers, valuables pouches, rangefinder cases and the occasional needlepoint belt. Around 172 products are live at any one time, priced from about $38 for a hat to $1,100 for a bag built out of a repurposed Barbour jacket.
The company exists because a cheap yardage book cover fell apart. Matt Reynolds took it to a local shoe cobbler to be repaired, and the cobbler told him they could simply build a better one. They went through roughly three versions. Friends asked for copies, a friend’s wife suggested Etsy, and in October 2015 he listed it. One sale came in the first month. Then about a hundred arrived over the next forty days, and the cobbler could not keep up.
For anyone who likes the idea of golf equipment made from named materials by identifiable people, this is a straightforward recommendation. It is also cheaper to get into than that description implies: a Horween scorecard holder is $85, and a waxed canvas headcover is $100.
“We like being the rock band only you and your buddies know about, that buried treasure.”
— Matt Reynolds, founder, to Etsy Journal, May 2017
The current catalog runs to 172 products; these eighteen cover the range, $68 to $850.
Reynolds has given two published interviews, both in 2017. The quotes below are from those, and are dated accordingly.
Reynolds grew up in Louisville and took his first job at Wildwood Country Club. He became a scratch player and finished inside the top five at the Kentucky Open. When Bluegrass Fairway started he was working at his family’s insurance agency, and had been since he was twenty-two. “I work at my family’s insurance agency and have since I was 22 years old, so the Bluegrass Fairway thing is kind of a side project for me,” he told GolfWRX in October 2017. Whether that is still true is not something the brand has said publicly since.
The cobbler could not scale, so production moved into the workshop of Will Jacoby — then Steurer & Jacoby, now Steurer & Co. — a Louisville leather house. In 2017 Reynolds said the sewing was being done there by Will’s daughters, Meg and Jane, with him helping. He also mentioned that his grandmother and her five sisters were quiltmakers, and that they taught him to sew. The current arrangement is not published; the Single Barrel collection page now refers to a Custom Shop of their own.
On what the brand is for, he was direct: “We want to provide a classy product that reflects what we appreciate about the game of golf. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll see something in neon orange from us.” And, to Etsy the same year: “The golf business right now, if you go into a golf store, it’s all neon colors and fluorescents, and that’s just not my style.” Nine years of catalog bears that out — the loudest thing in the range is a Pendleton blanket print.
Early orders set the tone. The Orlando Magic bought logo scorecard holders for a golf event about three months in. The USGA ordered yardage book holders for the Mid-Amateur, which Reynolds said sold out the first day. Curtis Strange became a customer. By December 2018 the brand had sold more than seven thousand scorecard holders.
One line has aged in an interesting way. In 2017 he described the materials as “super high-quality, made-in-the-USA materials, and we make everything by hand right here in Kentucky. We don’t mass produce.” The making is still in Kentucky. The materials have travelled: alongside Horween out of Chicago, the premium tier now runs on Italian leather — Buttero from Conceria Walpier, Pueblo from Badalassi Carlo — plus Harris Tweed from the Outer Hebrides and Pendleton wool. The claim about handwork holds; the sourcing map has widened.
The tanneries and mills are named on the product pages, which is rarer in golf than it should be.
Leather. Horween of Chicago supplies Chromexcel and shell cordovan. The Italian side is Conceria Walpier, whose Buttero is the pale vegetable-tanned hide used on the yardage book covers, and Badalassi Carlo, who make Pueblo. La Perla Azzurra supplies a camo-printed leather. North American bison and roughout suede appear on individual runs.
Cloth. Harris Tweed appears on roughly twenty products and carries the Orb mark, which requires it to be handwoven at the weaver’s home in the Outer Hebrides from virgin Scottish wool. Pendleton wool covers the louder pieces. Waxed canvas comes from British Millerain and from American 10oz duck.
Construction. Vinymo thread, hand-finished edges, and the standard line across the pouch range: all bags are handmade in the USA. The Single Barrel pieces are one-offs cut from single hides — when the hide is gone, the piece is not repeatable.
Matt Reynolds, in Louisville, Kentucky. He founded it in October 2015 after a cobbler offered to rebuild a yardage book cover that had fallen apart. Production moved early on into the Louisville workshop of Will Jacoby of Steurer & Co.
A run of one-off pieces the brand describes as "one-off only customs that we make in our Custom Shop in Louisville, KY... Each piece is 1 of 1." Roughly 34 products carry the tag, priced from about $80 to $300. Each is cut from a specific hide or a specific part of a blanket, so it cannot be reordered.
There is no public record of a parent company, outside investment or acquisition, and it has been founder-led since 2015. The brand describes itself as "a small team focused on making each piece right."
A cotton logo hat is $38 and the minimalist Horween scorecard holder is $85. Waxed canvas headcovers are $100 and leather ones $115. The Steurer & Co. collaboration bags run $850 to $1,100.
A little. Around 28 products are Bluegrass Fairway apparel produced by partners — the Tour Visor is made by Holderness & Bourne — and a Vintage Pro Shop collection of about nine items launched in May 2026, selling secondhand and new-old-stock golf clothing under the labels "Gently Used," "New Old Stock" and "New." The other 135 products are their own.
