Who Invented the Golf Ball Marker? A Short History of the Smallest Item in Your Golf Bag
When you think about iconic golf gear, your mind probably jumps to clubs, balls, gloves… maybe even that lucky hat you refuse to part with. But sitting quietly in pockets, drawers, and now beautifully inside a Marker Society book, is one of golf’s most understated essentials: the golf ball marker.
Surprisingly, this tiny disc has a bigger history than you might expect — but one thing is certain: no single person invented the golf ball marker.
The Early Days: When Coins Ruled the Greens
In golf’s early era (we’re talking early 1900s and beyond), players didn’t have custom markers, enamel tokens, club-crested discs or anything remotely fancy. They simply used coins.
Pennies, sixpence, florins — whatever was in their pocket became the “marker.”
It wasn’t about collecting. It wasn’t about style. It was purely practical: mark your ball on the green so you don’t block someone else’s putting line.
Formal Recognition: When the Rules Caught Up
By the 1920s–1930s, the practice of using something to mark your ball became so widespread that the R&A and USGAformally acknowledged it in the Rules of Golf.
What started as simple etiquette turned into a rule that shaped the modern game:
You must mark your ball before lifting it.
Still, no inventor. No patent. No big reveal. Just golf evolving naturally as it always has.
The Rise of the Modern Marker (and the Collector Culture)
As golf clubs began branding their identities, they started producing their own metal or enamel markers. What was once a pocket coin quickly became:
Club crest markers
Tournament markers
Resort & destination markers
Limited-edition markers
Charity day and corporate event markers
And then it happened — golfers started collecting them.
Each round, each course, each holiday trip, each milestone… one marker.
One memory.
Fast forward to today, and ball markers have become mini pieces of golf art, traded at pro shops, displayed in man-caves, shared between friends, and treasured for decades.
So… Who Invented the Golf Ball Marker?
Technically, no one.
It evolved naturally from players using coins, grew through formal rules, and became a cultural phenomenon in its own right.
But if you ask us?
The real inventor of the ball marker is every golfer who wanted to remember the story behind every round.
Why Golfers Store Their Markers Today
With collections growing and designs becoming more detailed (and sometimes massive), golfers needed a way to organise and display them — without losing them in a drawer or leaving them to scratch each other in a tin.
Enter the Golf Ball Marker Book.
A dedicated place to keep:
The club you finally birdied
The resort trip you’ll never forget
The comp day you still brag about
The ridiculous near-miss your mates won’t stop talking about
The one you bought because “you needed it for the set”
Each page a chapter.
Each marker a story.
Honouring the Tradition — One Marker at a Time
At Marker Society, we believe these small tokens have huge meaning.
They’re more than metal discs. They’re memories, milestones, and moments worth preserving.
So while the world may never know who technically “invented” the ball marker, the legacy of it lives on — beautifully, neatly, and proudly inside every Marker Society book.