Masterpiece Golf x Tarte Cosmetics: Inside The First Ever Beauty and Golf Apparel Collaboration

Image Credits: Masterpiece Sports Club

Some of the most interesting shifts in culture don’t announce themselves, they show up in collaborations people didn’t see coming.

Beauty and golf wasn’t an obvious pairing…..Until it was!

At first glance, a partnership between Tarte Cosmetics and Masterpiece Golf might feel unexpected. But looking closer, it becomes clear this isn’t just about product or branding. It’s about something bigger: signaling who gets to exist in certain spaces, and how those spaces evolve when new voices enter them.

This March, Tarte Cosmetics made history by being the first-ever beauty-and-golf-apparel collaboration with Masterpiece Golf, a brand focused on elevating golf style with innovative, sleek, performance pieces designed to move seamlessly from the course to the clubhouse. The curated collab edit, “The Vintage Muse,” was designed to pay tribute to the style, grace, and strength of women in the game. 

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about access: who gets it, how it’s created, and what happens when industries start opening doors they used to keep closed.

This is what that looks like in real time.

If there’s any place where this kind of cultural crossover makes sense, it’s Los Angeles, a city that has built its identity on blending industries, aesthetics, and audiences. From fashion houses collaborating with athletes to wellness brands showing up at sporting events, LA has long been the testing ground for what’s next.

This first-of-its-kind collaboration feels like a natural extension of that energy. So I wanted to understand the thinking behind it, not just as a campaign, but as a signal.

I spoke with Byron Kirkland II, founder of Masterpiece Golf, and Donna Kirkland, VP of Global Marketing at Tarte Cosmetics - partners in business and in life - about what it really means to build something that challenges expectations.

Q&A: Redefining the Playing Field

Q (to Byron): This partnership rocked the apparel and beauty industries in the best way. When you first envisioned working with a beauty brand, what opportunity did you see that others might have missed? How did this collaboration come from idea to life?

The opportunity was hiding in plain sight. Women are one of the fastest-growing segments in golf, yet the way the sport was being marketed, styled, and represented hadn't kept pace with that reality. When I looked at who was actually showing up to play, I saw women who care deeply about how they look and feel, on and off the course. Beauty is part of that equation. It always has been. The golf world just wasn't paying attention to it.

The collaboration came to life the way the best ideas do, through a real conversation. My wife Donna is VP of Global Marketing at Tarte, and we started talking about what it would look like if both brands showed up in the same space together. Not as a gimmick, but as a genuine cultural statement. Tarte has always been about empowering women, and Masterpiece was built to give women a reason to feel extraordinary on the golf course. Once we mapped those two missions onto each other, it was less of a business decision and more of an obvious next step. The question stopped being "should we do this?" and became "why hasn't anyone done this before?"

Q (to Donna): Beauty has traditionally existed in very specific environments. What made golf, and specifically this collaboration, feel like the right space to step into and expand with? 

Beauty has always followed culture, and culture right now is on the golf course. Golf is having a genuine moment; it's younger, more diverse, and more style-conscious than it's ever been. When I look at where our Tarte community is spending its time and what it's gravitating toward, golf keeps coming up. It wasn't a stretch. It was a signal.

What made this feel right was that it wasn't just about putting a beauty logo on a golf shirt. The collaboration had a point of view.  "The Vintage Muse" was designed to honor the style, grace, and strength of women in the game. That kind of intentional storytelling is exactly how Tarte approaches everything we do. We don't show up somewhere just to be seen. We show up to say something. Golf gave us a canvas to say something meaningful about who belongs in these spaces and what they deserve to feel like when they're there.

And honestly? The fact that it hadn't been done before made it more compelling, not less. Being first matters.

Q (to both): There’s a larger conversation happening right now around access and inclusion across industries. How intentional was this partnership in expanding who feels welcome in golf spaces?

Byron: Completely intentional. Masterpiece was never built to be just another golf brand for the same audience golf has always served. From the beginning, the goal was to expand the definition of who a golfer is and what a golfer looks like. When you partner with a brand like Tarte, whose community is overwhelmingly composed of confident, expressive, and unapologetic women, you're making a statement about belonging. You're saying: this space is yours too.

Donna: And from the beauty side, the same intention was there. Tarte has always championed women feeling powerful in their own skin, in whatever environment they choose to occupy. Bringing that energy to golf wasn't about disrupting the sport, it was about enriching it. When a woman steps onto the course feeling amazing, powerful, seen & heard, wearing something beautiful and empowering, that's not a small thing. That's access made tangible.

Q (to Byron): Golf has long carried a reputation for exclusivity. How are you thinking about evolving that perception through brand partnerships and cultural positioning?

I think about it less as tearing something down and more as building something alongside it. Golf has an incredible history, tradition, and culture.  But tradition no longer includes exclusion. I think a new generation of golfers understands that intuitively and is looking for a brand like Masterpiece Golf to rewrite the codes that embody a new generation of golfers seeking style, without compromising performance.  And that is precisely what we will continue to do.

Masterpiece's positioning is elevated, lifestyle-forward, and course-to-clubhouse, and it is designed to champion style, quality, and function. Not everyone who loves golf came through a country club. Some of them came through streetwear, travel, social media, or watching Tiger, Bryson, Rickie, Scottie, Troy, or Nelly and thinking, "I want to be part of that world." My job is to make sure the brand reflects that breadth. Partnerships like this one with Tarte are a big part of that strategy. Every time we collaborate with a brand that brings a different community into golf's orbit, we're widening the circle. That's the long game we're playing, no pun intended (ha!).

Q (to Donna): Tarte has built a strong community-driven brand. How do collaborations like this help you reach new audiences and grow your footprint without losing that core identity? 

The key is that we never collaborate just for reach. Reach without relevance is noise. What we look for is genuine alignment.  Masterpiece checked every single one of Tarte’s boxes.

Tarte was built on four guiding principles: kindness, giving back, paying it forward, and lifting others up. Those aren't just words on a wall. They're the filter every decision runs through, including who we collaborate with.

So when Maureen Kelly, Tarte’s Founder & CEO 1st thought about doing a collaboration with Masterpiece Golf, the question in everyone’s head: "Does this make business sense?" was immediately met with an overwhelming yes. Golf is a space where women have historically been an afterthought in marketing, design, and culture. This collaboration was an opportunity to change that. To walk into a space and say, " You belong here, and you deserve to look & feel incredible on & off the course.

That's tarte paying it forward. That's tarte being kind in the truest sense, genuine and intentional. When we show up in a new space, we don't show up quietly. We show up with our community, our values, and our commitment to making women feel seen. That's how you grow your footprint as you build your brand family, not followers. You don't leave your principles at the door. You bring them with you and let them reshape the room.

Q (to both): You’re building this together, not just as collaborators, but as partners. How does that dynamic influence the way you approach brand decisions and creative direction?

Donna: It's both the greatest advantage and the greatest challenge sometimes in the same meeting. We have completely different instincts. Byron thinks about brand architecture, cultural positioning, and the long arc of Masterpiece's evolution. I'm wired to think about the campaign, the content, the visual story, the moment. When those two perspectives are in dialogue, the work becomes sharper. But it requires real trust, and after being together since high school, we've had over 25 years to build exactly that. Still, it takes a willingness to hear things you don't always want to hear from the person sitting across from you at dinner.

Byron: What it really comes down to is that we're both deeply invested, not just professionally but personally. There's no phoning it in. Every decision carries weight because we both have skin in the game in a way that goes beyond a typical business partnership. We've been building things together since we were teenagers — this is just the latest chapter. The creative direction for "The Vintage Muse" — the styling, the mood, the storytelling — that came from hours and hours of real conversation between us, building on each other's ideas and pushing back when something wasn't right yet. I think you can feel that in the final product. When something is made with that level of care and that depth of history, it shows. 

Q (to both): What’s next for Masterpiece Golf? 

Byron: We're just getting started. The foundation we've built with Masterpiece, the aesthetic, the positioning, and the community we're attracting sets us up to grow in a lot of exciting directions. More drops, more collaborations with brands that share our vision, deeper engagement with casual and serious golfers as well as the creator and influencer community, and a continued push to show up in cultural spaces where golf hasn't traditionally had a seat at the table. The goal is to become the brand that redefines what modern golf culture looks like for this generation and beyond.

Donna: And from a content, experiential, and social standpoint, we're focused on building something that feels alive. Not just campaigns, but a world people want to be part of. The response to this collaboration has shown us that there is a real appetite for golf content that is stylish, aspirational, and inclusive all at once. We're going to keep leaning into that. Masterpiece isn't just a clothing brand, it's a point of view. And we have a lot more to say. 

The Takeaway 

Not every cultural shift comes with a headline.

Sometimes, it shows up quietly in a collaboration that makes you pause, look twice, and reconsider what belongs where.

When beauty shows up on the golf course, it’s not just about makeup. And when a golf brand partners with a beauty company, it’s not just about visibility.

It’s about rewriting the rules of who gets to participate and what those spaces can become.

In a city like Los Angeles, where industries constantly collide and evolve, this kind of partnership doesn’t feel out of place. It feels like a preview.

Of where sports are going.Of where culture is heading.And of what happens when access is no longer limited, but intentionally expanded.