By Bill Fields
When the days shortened and the temperature dropped as the winter of 2020–21 neared in New York, the calendar did to golf what the Covid-19 pandemic couldn’t do – drive people off the course. Sure, precautions were taken for safety, social distancing and foam cup inserts among them, but golfers continued to play during the unusual, stressful period. Jon Millman, a regular at Bethpage State Park for decades, was one of them.
Nearly five years later, Millman, 51, a portfolio manager who lives in Plainview, N.Y., three miles from the 90-hole Bethpage complex, is a testament to how boredom can be an unlikely first step toward establishing a business.
In his case, Golf Life Metals, a growing maker of custom ball markers, now carried by some of the world’s most well-known players as well as recreational golfers who want to use something other than a coin. The name is derived from a “GOLFLIFE” license plate Millman has had on his car for the last 20 years.
While sons Noah and Jacob were gaming, Millman, an avid golfer since age 13, began taking his first stabs at stamping wedges. The practice has been popularized by club manufacturers offering personalized imprints for the clubs of their tour players.
But the aborted wedge-stamping effort wasn’t a dead end. Millman had acquired tools and began experimenting on scrap pieces of softer metal, such as copper. “I wasn’t even planning on ball markers; they just kind of turned out to be what I made. They were kind of cool. I started using them and giving them to friends.”
The messages on the majority of Millman’s early efforts, were, uh, coarse. “People made requests, and most of them were curse words,” he says. “You know, ‘F golf,’ ‘F you,’ the kind of things you hear at Bethpage. We’re on Long Island.”
Millman began selling the handcrafted ball markers on Etsy in January of 2021, after someone aware of his fledgling hobby suggested he give the global online marketplace a try. Sales weren’t very brisk, but one person who ordered some – former European Tour player turned Sky Sports golf commentator Rob Lee – turned out to be an influential buyer. Lee had some markers made for a handful of friends in golf, including his television colleague Rich Beem, Laura Davies, and Paul McGinley.
Beem loaned his “lucky marker” to Tommy Fleetwood, prior to the second round of the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. Fleetwood shot 63, a dozen strokes better than his first-round score. Millman, a low-handicap golfer and huge golf fan, was blown away that his creations had found their way to the game’s biggest stages and eagerly crafted custom markers to give to Fleetwood and other tour pros such as Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Tom Kim, Min Woo Lee, and Minjee Lee. Basketball star Steph Curry and entertainer Justin Timberlake also have gotten gifts from Millman.
Darren Clarke used one of Millman’s markers while winning the 2022 Senior Open at Gleneagles in Scotland. Millman had used lighter and cheaper aluminum for most of his early markers, but, at Beem’s suggestion for a potentially windier setting, created a heavier copper style for Clarke to mark his ball at Gleneagles. His gifts to tour pros have been copper since, and copper accounts for 95 percent of his sales. The markers retail for $34 to $89, depending on the number of stamps requested by a customer.
Markers that Millman has made for the pros include reminders of their successes or phrases associated with them. One of Clark’s notes his 2023 U.S. Open victory at Los Angeles Country Club with “270,” the winning score. Another says, “Play Big,” an inspirational message from his mother, who passed away from cancer. It’s no surprise that “Let Him Cook,” what Min Woo Lee hears from supporters, is on his. Names or initials of loved ones – including pets – appear on quite a few. Paying customers also can request text of their choice and can choose from stamps of various themes: colleges, states, golf courses, and other options.
Millman experimented with sizes but settled on 1¼ inches in diameter, larger than a quarter but smaller than the dimensions of the logoed casino chip-style that have been widely sold over the last 20 years or so. “They are a little thick,” he says of his markers. “But when people give me a hard time, saying they would never use one in a tournament, I laugh and say, ‘Well, it won the Masters.’”
To be clear, Rory McIlroy won the 2025 Masters (and the career Grand Slam), but he was spotting his ball on the Augusta National greens with a GolfLifeMetals marker given to him by Millman, just as he had at the Players Championship. At the Masters, McIlroy’s marker had his initials and the name of his favorite soccer team, Manchester United, on one side. The other side featured a quote from Rory’s young daughter, Poppy, that she had uttered once when her father was leaving their house to practice: “You already know how to play golf.”
A Masters pin flag signed by McIlroy thanking Millman for the markers he has provided over the years is now one of Jon’s proudest possessions. “He sent me a flag, and I was blown away,” says Millman, who has provided McIlroy with a batch of markers reflecting his Grand Slam achievement.
Millman has been busy in the run-up to the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage. He is selling a Ryder Cup-themed marker on the GolfLifeMetals website and has produced others for the PGA of America to give to VIP guests. The United States team members also will be receiving an example of his hand-crafted work created for the event.
Wood, who caddied on the PGA Tour from 1998 through 2020 and is now an on-course announcer for NBC Sports, adds: “When I was growing up, you used a dime or a quarter, or maybe one of those little plastic markers. There was only one kind of tee. Now golf is such a big market. Make something cool and people will buy it.”
Millman’s offerings seem to be a prime example. Some customers are willing to pay a premium to receive their custom designs. “I used to be able to deliver in a week, no problem, but now I can’t,” he says. “But I have people who are paying upwards of $150 for me to get them a marker. And they keep doing it. As soon as they get one, they order another. I guess there’s a lot of people with money.”
It takes Millman between five and 20 minutes to create a marker, depending on the complexity of the design. “I can probably make eight to 10 an hour, depending on how complex they are. Some of the complex ones, a lot of times I screw up and have to start over. About everything you see is an individual stamp.”
The unanticipated success has given Millman a happy problem.
“I only have two hands,” he says. “I’m probably close to the limit if I’m still going to keep my day job. My best chance would probably be to find someone to partner with that’s already in the golf business producing something. This was just going to be a winter hobby.”