It turns out a jacket wasn’t the only green item Rory McIlroy received for winning the Masters last month.
At the PGA Championship this week, McIlroy traded in his Trackman 4 launch monitor, which he’s used for 10 years, and received a new unit with a green cover.
What’s so special about the green cover? As you might guess, given the timing of the trade-in, the green cover is reserved exclusively for Masters winners, and McIlroy’s is only the eighth Trackman in existence that isn’t orange.
Lance Vinson, Trackman’s director of U.S. tour and elite player engagement, told GOLF it’s a relatively new tradition for the company. The first green Trackman was delivered to 2020 Masters champion Dustin Johnson at the 2021 Masters after some people at Trackman came up with the idea to honour Johnson’s second major.
“It’s become something of a tradition since then for Trackman clients, where they have the option to trade the orange one for the green,” Vinson said. “It’s obviously part of the uniqueness, as it’s the only Trackman that’s not orange, and there’s only one way to get it.”
The green Trackman has become so coveted that even previous Masters winners before 2020, such as Adam Scott, Patrick Reed, Danny Willett, and even 1987 winner Larry Mize, have enquired about the green version.
It’s possibly one of the most intriguing lesser-known perks of winning the Masters, and it’s something the players get excited about.
“With Rory winning, we started hearing from his camp about how thrilled he is about getting it,” Vinson said. “So now it’s become a known thing among the players, with comments like, ‘Man, I want to get that green Trackman,’ or, ‘I’m going to win the Masters.’”
View this post on Instagram
Coincidentally, every Masters winner since Dustin Johnson has been a Trackman client, meaning they have purchased a unit from the company. Even tour professionals need to pay for a Trackman 4 unit, which starts at $22,495 (€20,176), though the company says they receive a slight discount in exchange for their name, image, and likeness in marketing and promotional materials.
When a player wins the Masters and opts to receive the green Trackman, it’s not as simple as replacing the orange cover with a green one. The face plates aren’t interchangeable. However, players don’t have to pay for the green unit; Trackman views it as a trade-in, with players giving up their old units in exchange.
But as precise and demanding as professionals are, do they ever worry that something might be slightly different about the new green units compared to the orange ones? Vinson said he actually worries about it more than they do.
“We are probably more superstitious than the players,” he said. “When we did Scottie’s, it was like, ‘This guy’s on an absolute heater. Is he going to want to change out the unit he’s bought and trusted for all these years?’
“And no problem, it was like, ‘Yeah, that’s really cool, I forgot you did that,’ and, you know, the rest is history.”
Leave a comment