Winning on the PGA Tour comes with plenty of rewards. Of course, there's the huge first-place payouts on the PGA Tour, going as high as $4.5 million.
Winners get a two-season exemption for taking a normal event, but that exemption can just to three seasons for certain invitationals, while winning a major or The Players earns a five-season exemption.
At some PGA Tour events, though, there's a sartorial prize for the champion. Some PGA Tour events give out a jacket to their winner.
PGA Tour events that award a jacket to winners
The Masters
The most recognizable jacket in golf is, of course, the green jacket the Masters champion gets. Dating back to the first green jacket awarded in 1949, Augusta National Golf Club gives the jacket to the winner, and they get to take it home with them to wear in their capacity as Masters champion for a whole year until they return to defend their title. After that, the Masters green jacket stays on club property until a player wins the Masters again. Multiple-time Masters winners do not get additional jackets for each Masters win. Instead, the multi-time Masters champion just has their original jacket put on them in the green jacket ceremonies in Butler Cabin and outside at the practice green.
RBC Heritage
The week after the Masters, another jacket is on the line. At Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, the winner of the RBC Heritage receives a plaid jacket. In the first years of the event, those associated with the tournament wore canary yellow jackets. In the 1970s, though, organizers were inspired by the famous 1790 golf print of Sir William Innes, who was captain of the Society of Golfers at Blackheath in Scotland, playing in a Royal Stewart tartan jacket. The tournament removed a yellow strip from the print to make it their own, calling it Heritage Plaid. In the initial years, the winner received a red jacket at the trophy ceremony and was given their RBC Heritage plaid jacket the next year in a pre-tournament ceremony, but that's no longer the case.
Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial
There are two plaid jackets on the line on the PGA Tour, and the second in calendar order is in the PGA Tour's invitational event at Colonial Country Club. The Colonial plaid jacket has been worn by club members since 1952, after the first six years saw the club members wearing navy jackets. The idea was to pay tribute to the game's heritage, making the jackets available only to Colonial members and tournament winners. The club can award a jacket to volunteers, tournament committee members and others involved with the event, at their discretion. The plaid is unique to the tournament, featuring 10 colors.
the Memorial Tournament
While Jack Nicklaus and the membership of host club Muirfield Village Golf Club wear grey jackets all during the Memorial Tournament, the champion himself doesn't get to take a jacket home. The same emphasis isn't placed on giving the champion a jacket to remember their victory, but it's rather used to identify people involved with the tournament.
Arnold Palmer Invitational
For many years, the winner of Arnold Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill won a jacket and a trophy that was a sword. However, since Palmer's passing in 2016, the winners in 2017 and beyond have received a red cardigan similar to one Palmer himself wore in the 1960s. It's not a jacket or a blazer, but it's still a coveted piece of clothing.
