Rory McIlroy’s handmade ball markers have fascinating backstory

Everyone seemed to have a hobby during the Covid years: knitting, painting, twice-a-day Peletoning.

Jon Millman invested in anvils, stamps and scrap metal, and taught himself how to make golf-ball markers. Millman, a financial planner and self-described golf junkie from Plainview, N.Y., on Long Island, had no previous metalwork experience, but the more he hammered away, the better he got. His early-edition markers — many emblazoned with cheeky language — were a hit among Millman’s golf buddies at his local hangout, Bethpage State Park, so he started selling them online.

Before long, Rich Beem, the 2002 PGA Championship winner who now commentates for Sky Sports in the U.K., discovered Millman’s fledgling business. Beemer was such a fan of the markers, he began dispensing them to players and his fellow TV analysts on the DP World Tour. At the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, Beem lent his own lucky marker to Tommy Fleetwood, who needed a boost after an opening 75. The next day, Fleetwood shot 63, and Beem’s loaner became a keeper. (Golfers are superstitious like that.) Word of the craftsy markers spread, and soon Millman found himself customizing tiny torched copper discs from his home workshop for a glittering roster of players that included then-four-time major winner Rory McIlroy.

Beem was Millman’s primary promoter and distributor (a Johnny Appleseed of sorts), but often Millman couldn’t be sure if his markers actually settled in players’ pockets. Such was the case with McIlroy, who Millman sent markers by way of McIlroy’s caddie and childhood friend, Harry Diamond, with whom Millman had connected over social media. Among the first markers Millman sent Diamond were designs stamped with “Manchester United” (McIlroy’s a fan) and “Poppy” (McIlroy’s daughter’s name).      

“He didn’t use them for at least a year-plus,” Millman, who is 51, told me by phone Tuesday morning.  “And then, out of nowhere, my phone’s blowing up. They’re like, ‘Dude, Rory’s using a marker.’”

This was in March 2023, during the week of the Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin. When the telecast cut to a tight shot of McIlroy aligning his ball, Millman’s friends spotted the Poppy marker. Since then, Millman said, “I just send Harry markers whenever I feel like it.” With one caveat: Diamond and Millman agreed that Millman should send tournament-themed markers only if McIlroy already has won that event. (There’s that superstition thing again.)  

Justin Leonard uses Millman’s markers. So, too, does Anthony Kim on the LIV tour. Beem, Millman said, even got a few custom markers into the hands of Tiger and Charlie Woods, including a copper replica of a quarter (Tiger’s marker of choice). At the Shriners event in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, Paul Tesori, who is Tom Kim’s caddie, arrived onsite to discover he’d forgotten to arm his boss’s bag with markers. Tesori sent a frantic message to Millman, who beelined for FedEx.

Also among Millman’s regulars is Darren Clarke, who enjoys gifting his tour pals markers stamped with R-rated messages. Clarke, Millman said, has delivered samples of Millman’s markers to Jack Nicklaus and even President Trump. “Darren literally is like, ‘Jon, I want you to make one that says 45/47 on one side, and DT on the other,” Millman said. “I go, ‘Are you serious?’ He goes, ‘I’m playing with him in January, I think, and I want to give him a gift.’ So, I made him, like, seven, and he’s like, ‘He loved it.’”

Millman doesn’t charge the pros for his services (he does sell markers on his site — the copper models are $49/each — and estimates he produces about 200 per month). “Whenever they say, How much? I’m like, It’s zero. I don’t want any money. I’ll take a yardage book. I’ll take an old wedge.” Most frequently, Millman said, the pros will send him a signed flag.

When McIlroy won the Masters in April, securing the career Grand Slam, Millman’s markers were along for the ride. One of them was stamped with an endearing quote from Poppy: “You already know how to play golf,” which Rory later explained was what Poppy said to him one day when she learned that he was working with a golf instructor.

After Rory made history, Millman was mostly ready to commemorate the moment. He already had ordered stamps depicting the outlines of each of the major trophies and had been experimenting with designs. Still, when Diamond pinged him on the Wednesday night of the Zurich Classic — this was about 10 days after Masters Sunday — and said that McIlroy was seeking Grand Slam markers for his Thursday round with Shane Lowry, Millman had to mobilize quickly. “To me, sending Rory emergency markers because he really wanted one — now we’re locked in,” Millman said.  

The gesture was not lost on McIlroy. Last week, Millman got an Instagram message from Diamond. McIlroy was intending to send Millman a signed Masters flag, and Diamond wanted to know if Millman wanted a specific message on it.

“I’m like, holy cow,” Millman recalled. “So now I’m composing — it takes me like three minutes to figure it out. He gets back to me, and he’s, like, ‘You have 10 seconds, dude.’ I’m like, ‘OK, OK. Sorry.’ And with that, he’s like, ‘OK, too late.’ He couldn’t wait anymore.” McIlroy’s handwritten message:

Jon, thanks for all the ball markers over the years!

A day or two later, the flag arrived at Millman’s home, in a package from Rory McIlroy Inc.

Millman has been storing his growing collection of signed flags in his backyard workshop. But now that a McIlroy memento has joined the mix, Millman has been reconsidering where to display them.

“Someone takes this one, I’d be mortified,” he said. “I’m thinking about moving them into the house. They’re worth a lot to me. They are not worth a lot to someone else, but they are to me.”