TThe first thing you see when you walk through the gates of Augusta National is the grass, which for the first time in your life is truly greener on the other side. Then it’s the rainbow of azaleas and above that the trees, dogwoods, magnolias and firethorns, winding down the driveway.
It will be about now, as you make your way towards the course, that you will begin to notice all the people retreating against the flow of the crowd. Soon you’ll be wondering where exactly everyone is going. And then the answer will hit you in the shin.
Because the largest gallery at Augusta National isn’t around the 1st tee, Amen Corner, or the 18th green, it’s the golf shop, and the tournament’s No. 1 draw isn’t Rory McIlroy or Jon Rahm or Scottie Scheffler or Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, but a limited edition 13.5 inch bearded garden gnome in a large white box with the Masters logo on it.
It costs $49.50 (£39.70) and is uglier than Jim Furyk’s swing, but almost everyone wants one. All the people marching away triumphantly from the first tee already have theirs and are heading to the car park to put them away safely before returning so they can maybe watch a bit of golf.
People used to line up at the gates so they could race to get their seats in the best viewing spots around the greens. Nowadays they do it, no kidding, so they can be first in line at the store. Soon the line, twisting and turning and doubling again, like Ernie Els making a six-putt on the first green in 2016, stretches all the way past the driving range.
It can take around two hours to get through, meaning if you’re lucky you’ll get out just in time to make it to the final nine. Almost everyone agrees that things are getting out of hand. “I blame the leprechauns,” a guard said sotto voce.
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The club is selling them faster than they can fill the shelves. It’s the only item in the store with a strict limit of one per customer and yet the daily stock runs out within the first hour of opening. By the end of the day, many of them will be on eBay or other resale sites, where prices are well over $500. Many of the rest, you think, end up in the bin after being ‘accidentally’ knocked off the mantelpiece by the poor husband who had his partner bring one home under the mistaken belief that it was a gift they could get permission to use to come back here again next year.
There’s something very strange going on here. Augusta National is one of the few places where no one is allowed to have a telephone anymore. Which poses a serious problem for customers today. How is anyone supposed to enjoy the Masters unless everyone knows they do? And if you can’t post a photo on social media, what are you supposed to do, use the phone booths? The gnomes are the next best thing. It’s the customers’ way of saying, “I was there.” They have become the must-have of the Masters, their own Instagram moment.
Augusta National has become a bucket list ticket. It increasingly feels like a place where people come to say they’ve been there. It wasn’t long ago that a large percentage of badges belonged to local families, who passed the right to purchase them from one generation to the next.
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Back then, going to the Masters wasn’t something to brag about because everyone around here was doing it. But over the past decade, the Masters has attracted more and more business guests. They had already built a hospitality complex, Berckmans Place, and have just opened a second, Map and Flag, across the road, saying this is only “phase one” of the development.
It is also, although the club would never admit it, their biggest spender. The Masters makes losses on corporate sponsorship, food and drinks, and even on regular tickets, but more than makes that back on merchandise. Forbes has calculated that the store generates $70 million per week. That amounts to an average spend of about $250 per person.
It’s a nice trick. Everyone is so surprised at the price of the pimento cheese sandwich that no one thinks twice about throwing all that money on a few T-shirts and a lawn ornament.
Augusta National used to consider itself a private club that just happened to host a major tournament. Nowadays it increasingly feels like a major tournament that also happens to be based on a retail empire.