Golf meets art in artist and designer Matt Senna’s creations
FLORIDA: A new boutique golf shop, Senna Made Clubhouse, just opened on Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Boulevard, offering sculptural, one-of-a-kind head covers, gloves, gear and apparel with a modern, youthful flair. But beyond the game, golf is about having a story to tell while you’re shooting the shinola with pals between strokes.
Here’s one: The guy that created those head covers, multimedia artist and designer Mat Senna, of Fort Lauderdale, is most internet famous for creating a 24-karat gold sculpture of Air Jordan 10 sneakers for rapper Drake, and similar pieces for Jay-z, DJ Khaled, rapper-actor Common and others.
Common’s gold sneakers, a git from his manager on the eve of the 2015 Academy Awards, made an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” ater Common won the Oscar for Best Song. Those shoes, Senna says, cost $25,000. In an Instagram post, Drake said the shoes Senna made for him were “solid gold” and weighed 100 pounds. All
Senna will say about Drake’s shoes, created with the rapper’s favourite Jordan sneaker in a private commission in 2016, is that they were “special” and the most expensive he’s ever done.
“People were like, ‘He bought them for like $2 million’ and this and that. It’s become this crazy thing. So I don’t disclose how those are made,” Senna says. Senna produced those pieces in Los Angeles, but when he opted to transition that creativity into his other passion, golf, he and wife Anny Debooth decided the first retail store would be in Fort Lauderdale, near where she grew up in Weston.
Located on the funkier east end of Las Olas, next to the iconic Floridian restaurant, Senna Made Clubhouse is a three-part operation and more than meets the eye from the street. The front of the store is retail, offering Senna-brand pieces — from hats ($65) and club head covers ($115-$175, sets of 10 $550) to leather shoe bags ($240) and duffel bags ($450) — along with men’s and women’s fashion from like-minded designers who spin the classics and a litle rebellion, including G/fore, Manors and Random Golf Club. T-shirts start at $35.
Toward the back of the shop is a floor-toceiling glass wall that opens into a large room with a tiered, turfed puting green on the floor and a massive golf simulator on the east wall. The back wall has a door that leads to a small lounge, with sofa seating and a large TV. The simulator costs $50 for 30 minutes, $80 for an hour. If a foursome wanted to play 18 holes it would cost $300-$350 and would include lounge access. Another opening in the back wall leads to Boketo Lab, where Debooth, an aesthetician, will offer facials and other skin-care treatments when it opens in April.
Senna acknowledges it made sense to open such a business in a “golf mecca,” but says one of his goals with the simulator space is to reach the non-golfer. “It can be scary being on the first tee for the first time, so we wanted to create an environment where people can come and experience golf in a fun way, a new way, where there’s not so much pressure on them,” he says. “Hit a few balls into the simulator, have a drink, hang out in a relaxed environment and realise how much fun the game is.”
Senna Made Clubhouse will have local professionals rotating in to provide basic lessons and specific instruction. Simulator sessions can be packaged with visits to Boketo Lab, another place to alleviate first-time fears among men reluctant to talk about skin treatment. Senna was not a consistent user of sun block on the course when he met Debooth.
“I feel like there is an opportunity to educate golfers more. Mat and I watch a lot of golf [on TV], and a lot of them have so much sun damage. And there is no advertising about sun protection. They really don’t even talk about it,” Debooth says. “When you tell a guy, ‘Do you want a facial?’, he’ll say, ‘Uh, I’ll pass on that,” she says. “So we’ll call it skin treatment. It will be a learning curve to make men more aware.”
A 36-year-old New Jersey native, Senna worked the cart shack at Baltusrol Golf Club as a kid and played baseball at Kean University, where he studied graphic design. It was while mulling ways to pay homage to a grandfather, whose ever-present white Chuck Taylors had been handed down to him by an uncle, that Senna cast his first sneaker sculpture.
In 2012 in Los Angeles, looking to escape his job at an advertising agency, Senna created several sculptures in resin of his favorite shoe, Air Jordan 11. A friend blogged about them, creating a stir in the sneaker-head community. Another 2012 series, cast in bronze, atracted atention from galleries and people such as Drake and Jay-z.
Senna still creates gold and bronze sneaker sculptures by commission, as well as lower-priced versions in resin and concrete. The pieces in his online shop at msenna.com — metal cost $8,000-$10,000 each, resin and concrete $450-$550 — are all sold out.
“We do special drops. I’ll do a Jordan 3 in resin, it’s limited to like 200 pieces or 100 pieces, and they’ll sell out that night,” Senna says. Shoe releases have been fewer, Senna says, as he’s been focused on opening his store, which was inspired by a golf club cover that once belonged to his other grandfather. “I loved the story that it told, and I decided I wanted to create something that’s high-end but gets beter over time. A product that could be passed down through generations like the game is itself,” Senna says. “Some of the best stories I’ve heard with my dad have been walking down the golf course with him and just talking.”