Golf is inherently for nature enthusiasts, which is why designer and photographer Karsten Jurkschat tapped into his Australian roots to create a bespoke brand that protects the very environment where the sport is played.
“I like to describe Gumtree to people as almost a slow-fashion golf brand — we make a lot of pieces from upcycled, vintage fabrics or heirloom textiles and things that have had a previous life,” Jurkschat told “Good Morning America” of his company Gumtree Golf & Nature Club. “We make small-batch pieces here in New York City for people that are looking for something for their golf game, or maybe their golf fashion or just regular everyday fashion, that has a bit of a story to it and is made in a thoughtful way.”
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club founder Karsten Jurkschat.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
Independent New York-based golf brand activates for 2025 Ryder Cup during Climate Week
In tandem with Climate Week and the 2025 Ryder Cup being hosted at Bethpage Black — a course Jurkschat said he himself has played many times — the Brooklyn-based designer made “10 one-of-a-kind club head covers” from a 1940s red, white and blue patchwork quilt he sourced in upstate New York, which will be released when the winner is decided.
The winner of the famed biennial team match-play golf competition between the U.S. and Europe — led by Keegan Bradley and Luke Donald — will help set the live price of the items. If, as Jurkschat hopes, USA wins by 1 stroke, customers could get the cover for 10% off.
“Every stroke that Team USA is winning by, the price goes down by 10% and will be fluctuating live on our website,” he said.
Jurkschat called the Ryder Cup “the perfect opportunity for us, being one of the only independent golf brands that makes clothes in New York and is based 100% in New York, to go big on this and special events.”
A collection of products from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
He noted that the brand has drummed up interest with live Q&A sessions with professional golf TV hosts, a local community walk and a showroom camp cookout.
“A lot of legacy brands are coming to town, putting out collections to be involved in New York City — but for us, we’re doing that one sustainably made, upcycled head cover, because it is Climate Week, and making something small and really special is the way that we would tackle the Ryder Cup coming to town,” he added. “It felt like the perfect chance to show what we do the best while the eyes of the golf world are on New York City.”
Jurkschat’s handcrafted designs have surged in popularity among golf and nature enthusiasts, including among A-list supporters like Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who stepped out with wife Hailee Steinfeld in July wearing the brand’s state flower tee, and singer Nick Jonas, who sported the brand’s tree branch NY dad hat at a golf outing last month.
Just out for a walk: How time in nature sparked a creative new lane in golf apparel
Jurkschat, a former advertising creative director from Melbourne, said he felt like he’d “fallen out of love with creativity” after nearly seven years working in the concrete jungle, and as an avid, lifelong surfer who grew up with an affinity for the ocean and spending time outdoors, he said he re-discovered golf during the pandemic, which provided him that same connection with the natural environment.
Founder of Gumtree Golf & Nature Club, Karsten Jurkschat, tees off at a golf course.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
“I found that getting up at 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. and going to one of the courses in the city and just walking around before everybody’s up and playing a round of golf gave me that same disconnect and kind of mental health break that I was kind of looking for,” he recalled.
Gumtree was born of Jurkschat’s passion to reconnect with the environment and was built off every aspect of his life experiences up to this point.
“When I I started this, it was just due to burnout in the corporate creative industry,” he said. “I didn’t really expect it to go anywhere. It is just really special because the brand really is an amalgamation of my entire life.”
The “Just Out for a Walk” campaign from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club at Torrey Pines.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
Jurkschat said his father was a landscape gardener — “That’s where I learned all my plant knowledge,” he said — and his German grandmother “made a lot of our clothes as kids and taught me to sew,” a craft he said he kept up over the years and eventually prompted his $300 sewing machine purchase to hand-make “all the [Gumtree] products myself at my little studio in Brooklyn” for the first six months of production.
“When I started the brand, I thought, ‘You know what, if I really want this to be truly sustainable and the pipeline to be really short, I’m gonna try to make them,'” he recalled.
In just three short years, Jurkschat created his multifunctional Greenpoint shop, which functions as both a showroom and work studio where he makes prototypes and sells merchandise.
Sustainability is par for the course with Gumtree Golf
Gumtree products range from handstitched golf club covers or golf bags made from upcycled wax canvas camping tents with beautifully weathered patina — much like the kind Jurkschat said his family slept in on the Australian coast for weekslong camping trips as a kid — to other vintage sourced materials for T-shirts, hats and other nature-inspired golf accessories.
Upcycled golf bags from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
The [production] cycle is pretty short and sweet,” he said. “I source everything myself, the fabric, and do all the design work myself in the studio — then I take it to the small workshop we use in Manhattan and the guys put it together from there. It keeps the production timelines short, and it’s sustainable as possible ’cause we’re not shipping back and forth across oceans or across the country. And we do fulfillment out of here too.”
Unlike large athletic fashion apparel brands that have to do things more than a year in advance, Jurkschat said Gumtree is uniquely positioned to remain “small and nimble.”
One of the long sleeve shirts from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
“We make something, we promote it, it sells out, we use that money to make the next thing and we just keep it feeling tight and special,” he said. “We make every decision with the brand based on the best piece of storytelling we can do in a product that furthers the purpose of the brand — if we started mass producing everything, we would start to make decisions based on, like, moving product versus kind of making interesting pieces.”
A golf bag with upcycled material club head covers from Gumtree Golf & Nature Club.
Gumtree Golf & Nature Club
Gumtree also says it donates “2% back of all sales to help remove carbon from the atmosphere,” which Jurkschat said he researches and changes up every quarter.
“There’s a lot of good initiatives fighting [climate change] — we like to let our customers know we’re putting our money where our mouth is,” he said. “I’d sometimes love to have that extra 2%, because we’re self-funded and don’t have investors. [But] it’s really important to me to give our customers the opportunity to feel like they’re making a difference through Gumtree.”
