Dinner – Golfing Networks

At Masters Champions Dinner, Rory McIlroy found his future seat

admin — Fri, 08 May 2026 17:51:28 +0000

The Masters Champions Dinner is a nerve-wracking experience for first-time hosts. You want to hit everything out of the park, from the appetizers to the dessert and the drinks. But one of the biggest Champions Dinner questions doesn’t get answered until the year after you first sit at the head of the table.

Where do I sit?

The defending champion and dinner host always sits between Ben Crenshaw, the unofficial emcee, and chairman Fred Ridley, at the head. The next year, it’s up to newcomers to find their future spot. Over the years, different cliques have formed at the table. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson sit to the left of the head. Zach Johnson and Jordan Spieth rub shoulders, along with Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson. Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman sit at the far corner. And so it goes.

“It’s not assigned seating, but a lot people sit in the same chairs,” Scott said in 2023. “I like that, to be perfectly honest. I like the fact that you kind of feel like that’s your spot.”

After Scottie Scheffler hosted the dinner in 2023, he had to pick a spot to sit that would become his.

“There’s a little protocol,” Scheffler said at this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational about the seating arrangements at the fabled dinner. “I’m definitely not going to go sit in the area where Tiger and Jack sit. Like, there’s kind of spots where you kind of feel you’ll naturally flow into.”

Scheffler normally would cozy up next to his Dallas buddy Spieth, but he didn’t want to give the 2015 champion an opportunity to prank him in front of everyone. “I definitely didn’t ask Jordan to sit by him, because he would have done something to make sure that I didn’t have a place to sit,” Scheffler said, laughing. He ended up asking Johnson and is now a part of that table cohort.

At this past year’s Champions Dinner, Rory McIlroy wowed with a menu that included wagyu steak, which players raved about, yellowfin tuna carpaccio and a brilliant selection of wines from Augusta National’s famed cellar. As McIlroy sat between Crenshaw and Ridley, he surveyed the layout of the table and noticed something.

“It’s a big, long table. Like a U-shape,” McIlroy said on the New Heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce. “And at the bottom-left corner, you’ve got Trevor Immelman and Adam Scott. And they just look like they’re having the best time. They are just having the night of their lives. And I said to Adam and Trevor, If I don’t win this year, just save me a seat down by you guys.”

Although McIlroy’s journey down to Scott and Immelman’s corner will have to wait for at least another year, after he became just the fourth player in history to successfully defend his title at Augusta National.

That historic achievement now leaves McIlroy with a different Champions Dinner query: What’s on next year’s menu?

“I think everyone enjoyed the dinner. I tried to do enough dishes that would please everyone. And I’m a big wine guy. I collect wine and I have done that for the last 10 years, so the wine selection was something that was pretty important to me,” McIlroy said. “I went pretty fancy this year. It’s always on the Tuesday night, so I was thinking that I could just do a Taco Tuesday or something. We’ll see.”

McIlroy’s 2026 Masters win was a different kind of victory than his cathartic 2025 triumph. In 2025, McIlroy crumpled to the ground overcome with relief that he had finally accomplished a lifelong dream. This time, McIlroy tapped in his winning putt and felt only joy.

“Nothing will ever top the euphoria of it all last year,” McIlroy said. “But this year was validation. Like, I proved last year that I could do it at this place and then I go back without my best stuff — I built a really big lead over two days. But to get it done in the manner in which I did — lost the lead on Sunday, came back and played really solid to get it done — just validaiton on my part that this is where I should be. This is the level that I should be operating at.”

McIlroy did that, and now, he’s got another dinner to plan before, maybe, taking his place next to Scott and Immelman.

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Rory McIlroy reveals his Masters Champions Dinner menu

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:30:39 +0000

On Wednesday, defending Masters champion Rory McIlroy held a conference call at Augusta National. No, the 2026 Masters isn’t starting early. Instead, McIlroy was in Georgia for some important pre-tournament business: revealing his Masters Champions Dinner menu.

Not only did McIlroy drop a Masters dinner menu to be remembered, but he also detailed his reasons for choosing each dish to reporters. The list of food Rory and his fellow Masters champions will be enjoying is long and impressive. It even includes a dish inspired by one of the world’s greatest chefs.

Here’s what you need to know.

First, the basics. The Masters Champions Dinner is a long-running tournament tradition that brings all the past Masters champions together Tuesday night of Masters week.

While the exclusive affair is conducted “in honor” of the Masters winner from the previous year, the defending champion is also in charge.

That means this year McIlroy had to choose the menu that Augusta National’s esteemed chefs will cook for him, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus and the rest of the green jackets. (He also has to pay for the meal.)

Some Masters winners don’t seem to spend much effort on the task (see: Bubba Watson and Tiger). But other champions take it very seriously. And McIlroy sits firmly in the latter camp.

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By:

Alan Bastable

During his conference call at Augusta, McIlroy admitted it would be “it would be pretty presumptuous to have a menu in your head before you actually win the tournament.”

Then again, McIlroy has waited a long time to win his first green jacket and enjoy his first Champions Dinner. So he also assured everyone that he didn’t put it together off the top his head. His focus was choosing menu items that all his fellow Masters winners would enjoy, along with some “personal touches.”

Here’s a list of the dishes, followed by Rory’s detailed explanations of each.

The appetizers for McIlroy’s Masters Champions Dinner will include peach and ricotta flatbread, rock shrimp tempura, bacon-wrapped dates and grilled elk sliders.

For a first course, Rory and friends will dine on a yellowfin tuna carpaccio, while the second course will be an option between wagyu filet mignon or seared salmon along with several side dishes.

Finally, for dessert Augusta’s chefs will serve sticky toffee pudding.

Here are Rory’s thoughts on many of the dishes.

Bacon-wrapped dates inspired by “Mum”: “So for appetizers, I have done four. Firstly, my Mum does these really, really nice dates stuffed with goat cheese wrapped in bacon so I put those on the appetizers list. So thanks to Rosie for that one.”

Elk sliders: “In the buildup to the Masters last year, I was eating a lot of elk. I got this big shipment of elk, and I was eating a lot of that. And I didn’t want elk to be the main course because I didn’t know if everyone would like that. So I incorporated that into the appetizers. So I’m doing grilled elk sliders which I think is fun.”

Rock shrimp tempura: “And then another nice appetizer that I think everyone likes is rock shrimp tempura, so sort of a crowd pleaser with that one.”

Local Georgia peach and ricotta flatbread:“And then I wanted to try to bring a little bit of, I guess, the local ingredients in. So I’m doing a Georgia peach and ricotta flatbread with hot honey. So hopefully that will go down well with the drinks.”

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By:

Jessica Marksbury

Eric Ripert’s yellowfin tuna carpaccio from Le Bernadin: “And then as we move on, the first course, my wife, Erica and I, our favorite restaurant, or one of our favorite right now is in New York. It’s called Le Bernardin. Eric Ripert is the chef there, and this is a dish from that restaurant. It’s a yellowfin tuna carpaccio. It’s a really thin slice of French baguette with a really thin slight of foie gras on top of that and tuna carpaccio. So raw slices of tuna on top of that.”

“It’s a really simple dish, but every time we go to that restaurant, that’s the one thing that I have to have. I can sort of change up everything else in my order but that tuna carpaccio is the one that stays. So that’s a fun one that the club worked with me on as well. They went up to the restaurant and worked with the chefs, and made sure; that they obviously wanted to get it right for the night, so that’s really cool.”

Wagyu filet mignon and seared salmon: “Moving on to the main course, again, you know, I want — you know, this dinner, obviously it’s an amazing honor to be able to host it, but at the same time, I want everyone to enjoy it. I went for two different options for the main course, a wagyu filet mignon for people that want red meat, or a fillet of seared salmon; so depending on what you want.”

Side dishes: “And then for the sides, a lot of different sides. I’ve gone traditional Irish Champ. When I was a kid used to eat champ by the bowlful. So trying to tie in a little bit of my upbringing there. Some sauteed brussel sprouts. Glazed carrots with brown butter. And then trying to bring a little bit of that local flavor back in, some crispy Vidalia onion rings. Vidalia is not too far away from Augusta, about two a two-hour drive, and a member of a golf course there who had been in that club; a little bit of local ingredients being brought back in.”

Sticky toffee pudding: “And then for dessert, I think very much a crowd-pleaser, sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream on warm toffee sauce.”

McIlroy closed out his menu with a pricey selection from Augusta National’s famed wine cellar, which Rory described as his “favorite part of the menu.”

At last year’s Masters Champions Dinner, the honoree was World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.

Because the dinner commemorated Scheffler’s second Masers win (in 2024), it was the second chance he had to pick the Masters Champions Dinner menu.

‘I can’t eat that’: This Masters Champions Dinner dish dropped jaws

By:

Alan Bastable

Interestingly, he picked a nearly identical menu to the one served in 2024 after his first Masters win in 2023.

Unlike McIlroy’s menu, Scheffler’s choices didn’t take inspiration from any Michelin-starred New York restaurants.

Scheffler and the Masters champions dined on appetizers of cheeseburger sliders, firecracker shrimp, a first course of Texas-style chili a main course of wood-fired cowboy ribeye or blackened redfish.. The dessert was a warm chocolate chip skillet cookie is the dessert.

There was one appetizer at Scheffler’s Masters dinner that wasn’t served at his first. That would be meatball and ravioli bites, a nod to the hand injury Scheffler suffered when cooking ravioli for Christmas the winter before.

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