AUGUSTA, Ga. — It retails for $49.50 and is available for sale just eight days a year. Exactly how a 18-inch-tall Santa lookalike has gone from novelty to collectible at the Masters is a topic ripe for a business school graduate student somewhere to explore. Or maybe it’s better left for psychology major.
Regardless of how the phenomenon came to be, the Masters gnome remains a must-have merch purch, at least if Saturday’s shopping by patrons at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and Sunday’s opening during the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals were any indication.
This is the second year that Mackenzie Brown of North Augusta has purchased the gnome. “There’s something fun about them,” she said. “The fact they change every year makes them special.”
Indeed, since first sold in 2016, the gnome’s clothing has changed each year to increase interest in making them an annual purchase. The 2025 edition is clad in a shirt with Masters-related food items, the gnome carrying a backpack and holding a sandwich, saddle golf shoes and a hat rounding out his kit. (There is also a smaller nine-inch version, the gnome dressed up in a Masters caddie bib, for $29.50.)
J.D. Cuban
Brown was with three other friends, Mike, Nate and Jack, each carrying their own gnome as well. For Mike, there was a sense that the gnome has become an expected part of every patron’s shopping list.
“There’s a fear of missing out,” he said. “Friends will say ‘you didn’t get the gnome? No gnome? Loser.’ ”
The foursome says they have no interest in reselling their gnomes on eBay or the secondary market, but all were acutely aware of the business that that has become. Early on Saturday afternoon, there were more than a dozen eBay listings for this year’s gnome that started at $425, a nearly 1,000 percent mark-up. And if you search for “vintage” gnomes from years past, you can see some listings in the five-figure range.
Mind you, Augusta National is aware of this as well. That’s why sales of the gnomes are limited to one per customer. However, the club continues to limit the number it sells each day (not revealing that total or the total manufactured or any other information about how or where they’re made.) The daily supply runs out within a few hours of the merchandise store opening.
In other words, if you’re in the market for a gnome, or don’t want to be a “loser” patron who didn’t get one, be strategic in your shopping this week. The laws of supply and demand are always in play at Augusta National.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
