Just after 7 a.m. on Tuesday, moments earlier than dawn, a wave of patrons swept up towards me from the fundamental entrance at Augusta National Golf Club.
Together, we approached a line of safety personnel fanned out throughout the pathway and got here to a short lived halt; a spokesman defined how we had been all going to navigate the subsequent steps collectively, additional onto the property.
“Don’t run, nice and slow,” got here the directions. “If anyone loses a shoe, we’re going to have a hard time stopping.”
“Look at this,” I heard one observer say as we resumed strolling and swarmed previous her up the hill. “Just hilarious!”
Nobody was saying it, however everyone knew the place we had been heading and why we had been going there. “For those of you looking for the golf course, please keep left,” continued the steerage, “if you’re off to the store, go right.”
By now, we had been hundreds deep and there was a collective chuckle as the practice of humanity lurched, as one, to the different facet of the path. Some of those patrons had set their alarms for 3:15 that morning, pulling into the parking zone at 5:45 a.m.
This is what it takes to snag the very unlikely star of the Masters merchandise retailer: The backyard gnome.
Within the first 45 minutes of enterprise, the patrons had been saying that the retailer had already offered out of them for the day.
When the gnome first appeared sporting an argyle sweater in 2016, no person may have imagined the place it will lead a decade later. The Masters didn’t even promote one the following 12 months, however in 2018, he was again for the basic public, wearing a caddy’s white jumpsuit.
Standing at simply over a foot tall with a voluminous, pure white beard, the gnome is given a fancy dress change yearly, and like all Masters merchandise, it may possibly solely be bought on property throughout the week of the Masters event.
Its shortage has helped to create a runaway resale market. The 2026 gnome, wearing a navy gilet and replete with an umbrella, retails for $59.95. But, earlier than the gates had even opened this 12 months, pristine, first editions of the gnome had been being marketed on eBay for between $10,000 and $14,000 and a rumor that Augusta would discontinue them after this 12 months has solely fueled its recognition.
Ashley DeSimone informed NCS Sports that she made it to the parking zone at 5:20 on Wednesday morning, solely to appreciate that hundreds of individuals had been already forward of her in line. She mentioned that 2,000 individuals had been directed to a different ready part outdoors of the gates which she described as the “runners up to the gnome.”
DeSimone mentioned there was no query why everyone was there so early: “At that hour, it was Gnomemania, and I had Gnomemania, believe me. The security guard was like, ‘Yeah, you’re not getting a gnome, sorry.’”
Another patron, Greg Postma, informed NCS that he and his spouse Kim had efficiently managed to increase their assortment of gnomes this 12 months, however that they skilled pushing in the retailer to get one.
“It’s the first time in all the years we’ve come here that people were the slightest bit rude,” he mentioned. “Never been pushed before, never, and one of the people working in the gift shop actually said, ‘Hey, hold it, settle down.’ I’ve never before heard that at Augusta National.”
Hunt for the Masters Gnome
The Masters attracts spectators from round the world to its storied grounds yearly for one in every of the greatest occasions in the sport, however solely the luckiest followers can snag its coveted memento gnomes. NCS’s Andy Scholes joins Masters attendees on the hunt for the elusive figurine at this 12 months’s occasion.
Such testimony will possible be regarding for the membership at Augusta National, which values respect and etiquette as paramount.
If the gnomes are being bought with the intention of being flipped for a revenue, NCS Sports couldn’t discover anyone keen to confess it. The patrons we spoke to appeared to really feel a deep private connection both to the gnome itself, or the Masters normally.
Ariella Robinson urged an nearly maternal bond with the gnome in her purchasing bag. “I’m making a garden, he needs a home,” she informed NCS.
“He doesn’t need to be passed around. It’s not about the money; it’s about the love. If you sell him, you don’t know who’s going to get him, you don’t want to hand him off to some not-good guy.”
Arriving at 7 a.m. on Monday, Caroline Proctor says she was too late for a gnome this 12 months, however she has 8 of the 10 made to this point in a set at house.
“They’re quirky and very different, very unexpected from Augusta National and the Masters,” she mentioned. “It’s not like a polo shirt that you’re going to wear a couple of times or once a year, people display them, they’re kind of a cult classic now.”
Kyle Smith’s 7 a.m. arrival was additionally too late on Monday, so he returned at 5:45 the subsequent day to verify he was at the entrance of the line. The gnome is deeply private to him, because it resembles his late father Charlie, and the final time he spoke with him was simply earlier than he entered the Augusta National grounds in 2022.
“He said, ‘I wish I could be there with you boys,’ and that was the last time I talked with him,” Smith recalled. He’s received three of the gnomes now, and so they sit in his workplace, alongside the urns containing his mother and pop’s ashes.
What would his father consider the tribute? “I think he’d love it; I think he’d get a kick out of it. The Masters was a tournament that was really special to all of us.”
Kenneth Locke is an Augusta native, who grew up simply throughout the highway from the membership and he even labored there throughout the event, raking leaves on Magnolia Lane. Now retired, he additionally bears a putting resemblance to the gnome, and because of his inventive spouse Tammy, he’s been dressing up in the identical outfit as every gnome since 2019.
He’s meticulously resourceful, borrowing an Augusta National tie from a neighbor and shopping for plaid pants from John Daly’s web site in 2024. Twelve months later, Tammy recreated the peaches and ice cream shirt by hand-painting it herself, and this 12 months she splashed inexperienced paint throughout his sneakers.
At 5-feet-9-inches tall, he’s maybe slightly too huge to be a gnome, however the visible resemblance is uncanny – one patron was visibly moved by the sight of him, stopping in her tracks and reaching into her purse for her digital camera. He says policemen have pulled him over for selfies, and little women have requested if he’s the actual gnome.
“He’s a jolly old man right there,” he informed NCS. “I don’t consider myself old, but I’m loving it. It’s all fun. We have a good time, put smiles on people’s faces, laughter. That’s all it’s about.”
Locke isn’t positive what to make of the rumors about the gnome’s future, he mentioned he heard the identical story final 12 months, however Augusta actually doesn’t want this explicit piece of merchandise to show a revenue.
In 2022, Forbes estimated that the membership rakes in $10 million in income each day throughout the event, and so they clearly don’t have any intention of confirming or denying the rumors. Chairman Fred Ridley was placed on the spot by a journalist on Wednesday, who nearly apologized for even asking the query.
“Number one, the question is not trivial,” Ridley replied. “Number two, I’ve been asking that question for several years, and they won’t tell me the answer. So, I can’t help you.”
It’s not clear who he may need to seek the advice of on the matter: his merchandise staff or perhaps even the gnomes themselves? The patrons will simply must set their alarms early once more subsequent 12 months to search out out.