AUGUSTA, Ga. – Ian Woosnam doesn’t fancy himself a wine expert.
“But I like drinking it, that’s for sure,” said Woosnam, one of 33 past Masters champions who gathered for Tuesday night’s Champions Dinner hosted by Rory McIlroy.
“The wine was excellent,” Woosnam added. “Had a lovely flavor to it, lovely body to it, complemented the food brilliantly.”
Woosnam wasn’t alone in agreeing that the bottles of 1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild were big hits. So, too, was the wagyu filet mignon and sticky toffee pudding.
“I should say that, like his golf game, Rory’s menu and wine selection were world-class,” said Masters chairman Fred Ridley, also a guest of reportedly the priciest champions dinner ever.
Scottie Scheffler started the evening sharing a conversation with Charles Coody in the locker room. The chat ran a little long, and Scheffler missed his chance at any of the appetizers, which included peach and ricotta flatbread, rock shrimp tempura and bacon-wrapped dates.
“I was kind of bummed,” admitted Scheffler.
A year ago, Scheffler served a menu that included Texas-style chili that was a “five-alarm fire,” according to one attendee, and ribeye steaks that probably weighed over two pounds, though Woosnam reckoned he could’ve finished it “back in the old days.” This year’s steaks were much more manageable.
“The filet, it was a nice, little filet mignon,” Woosnam said. “I haven’t had one like that. Usually, I have a bit bigger one.”
Aside from the food, McIlroy was the star of the show. Earlier on Tuesday, McIlroy shared a story from Tuesday of last year’s Masters. He and Justin Rose were having dinner that evening at Augusta National, and when McIlroy was pulling up to the front of clubhouse from Magnolia Lane, he caught a glimpse of some of the past champions on the second-floor balcony, enjoying cocktails.
“I’m like, I don’t want to valet, get out, they’re going to see me and it’s going to be weird,” McIlroy recalled. “So, I had this really awkward moment with it all last year. Yeah, thankfully that was the last time that I needed to do that.”
McIlroy was a “very gracious and humble champion,” according to Larry Mize. For Mark O’Meara, who was paired with McIlroy when he won his first pro title at the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy “showed tremendous honor to be in that room.”
“It was his lifetime dream to be sitting with all these champions,” Woosnam said. “Never give up on your dreams, that’s what he said.”
Jack Nicklaus and Adam Scott were among the other speakers.
“I didn’t really have anything prepared,” Scott said. “It wasn’t planned. So, I don’t know if there was a theme at all. But I just spoke about the first time I played with Rory (at the 2008 Qatar Masters), flashed through his journey and just felt like I think all the champions were watching him trying to win last year, hearts up in their throat, living every bit of it with him because they’ve all gone through something like that. And Rory spoke so well and expressed what it means to him. And I just felt like it was nice to acknowledge that, that we share that with him, and proud to have him in the Masters club.”
Ben Crenshaw, the annual emcee of the dinner, brought with him one of Ben Hogan’s old drivers and passed it around the room for players to hold.
“It was this wooden driver with a grip that was on pretty weak with a string reminder underneath it,” said O’Meara, who famously turned pro in Hogan’s office in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a similar driver. “It had no loft on it, about 7 degrees, and no roll and bulge. When I even tried to hit the driver they gave me, it was like a low cut. I don’t think anybody in there felt like they could probably hit it.”
Added Mize: “It’s definitely toward the open and flat side. It was a no-hook driver.”
Fuzzy Zoeller, who died last November, was remembered. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the only two living champions to not attend, were missed.
“Whatever transpires, we always wish the best for our fellow champions, and certainly Phil and Tiger with what they are dealing with,” O’Meara said.
Then there was the dessert, which was, according to O’Meara, “off the charts.”
Gary Player even had some.
“I ate three-quarters of it,” Player said. “That’s my weakness is I like sugar, and I’ve got to try and stop.”
The 90-year-old Player, who says he’s broken his age on the course “3,400 times in a row,” played with young countryman Aldrich Potgieter, 21, on Wednesday and was delighted to see that Potgieter had lost over 30 pounds.
“I went to study in India on longevity to try and reach 100, and he said the three worse things for you are smoking, obesity/overeating, and alcohol,” Player explained. “And this guy Aldrich can play. He’s got a chance to win majors. If you lose weight, it’s an asset. But if you carry 30 extra pounds on your shoulders, day in and day out, it affects the heart, your liver, even the hairs in your nose. What I’ve learned is have two meals a day, and if you do have dinner, you have that (handful). You eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a poor person. I think it was Shakespeare who said that.”
But for this night at least, Player and his champion company splurged.