Getty Image / Gregory Shamus
When a brand signs a professional athlete as an ambassador for a lot of money they expect to get a return on that investment in the form of brand exposure and it is hard to imagine better exposure than a golfer holding up The Masters trophy wearing a brand’s wristwatch. Such was the case in recent years when a golfer signed with Rolex the week before The Masters and wen ton to win the tournament.
Chad Mumm, producer of Full Swing, told a story about this recently on the ‘Vanity Index‘ podcast from Skratch golf. He opted to not name the golfer or the brand but it’s pretty easy to put two and two together when you consider that Scottie Scheffler signed with Rolex on the Sunday before he won the 2022 Masters, his first Masters win.
According to Mumm’s story below, the golfer had just signed with the Swiss watch brand… Which we believe to be Scottie and Rolex, despite some commenters thinking it was Jon Rahm who won in 2023 and signed with Rolex in 2016. Then when it came time for the trophy ceremony they went to put a watch on the winning golfer before the green jacket and the watch didn’t fit.
So what did they do? They went around and started asking the Augusta National GC members if they could borrow a watch for the ceremony. They needed a $20k Rolex because the golfer’s hands were huge but he had thin wrists. In the photos after winning the 2022 Masters, Scottie Scheffler was seen wearing a ‘Root Beer’ Rolex GMT-Master II watch… With that context, here’s the story:
@skratch Lending your $20,000 watch to the Masters Champion is an all-time flex. 😂 #golf #golftiktok #themasters #augusta @Chad Mumm @wellsadams
The video is also up on Instagram for those who would prefer that medium. Be sure to smash the ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ button on Skratch. And of course, we can’t say for certain who it was but the details certainly point to one individual.
Theories on Jon Rahm are interesting though because I remember seeing Rahm’s watch unbuckled at various points right after he won The Masters. However, looking at Getty Images from that day the watch is buckled and it looks like it fits just fine on his wrist.
When Scottie Scheffler won his second Rolex he was also wearing a different watch from the GMT-Master II. Scottie was wearing the Rolex Submariner (Ref. 116610LV) aka ‘The Hulk’ which was released in 2010 and discontinued in 2020 to make way for larger watches… Which would suggest this would fit a smaller wrist…
Imagine being the person walking around the crowd saying ‘hey, I need to borrow your $20K watch literally right now so Scottie can wear it’ immediately after he won his first Masters green jacket. Wild stuff is always going on behind the scenes, huh?