Fred Ridley said Friday he still has not been told whether 2026 will be the final year Masters gnomes are sold, keeping alive one of Augusta National’s strangest and most closely watched retail questions. He said he has been asking the same thing for years and still does not have an answer.
“Number one, the question is not trivial,” Ridley said during his annual Masters media address. “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.”
The Masters gnome has become a small object with an outsized following. The figurines cost $49.50, typically sell out within one morning hour and carry strong resale value, a rush that Augusta officials are understood to see as a strain on the spectator experience inside merchandise outlets. That demand has made the future of the gnomes a live issue, not a novelty footnote.
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The unresolved gnome question came as Ridley also laid out Augusta National’s thinking on golf’s broader equipment debate. He said the club’s position on a potential rollback of the ball is based on more than protecting Augusta National Golf Club, adding that the club will keep making changes as needed to respond to driving distances that in some cases exceed 350 yards. Many courses, he said, including some iconic venues, do not have that option, and the sport has become much more one-dimensional.
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Ridley made clear he wants the issue resolved, not merely discussed. “My feeling on this subject is that failure is not an option,” he said. “We need to continue to work together to come to some agreement.” For now, though, he offered no clue that the Masters gnome will survive beyond 2026 — only that he is still asking, and still waiting.
