One in all the more enduring traditions of the Masters tournament, starting this week at Georgian Augusta National Golf Club, is the so-called Champions Dinner – or Masters Club Dinner to offer it its official name.
A mainstay of Champions Week for 70 years, it takes place on Tuesday evening before the four-day tournament kicks off on Thursday. Throughout the event, the reigning champion – this 12 months it’s world No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler – hosts a dinner for probably the most exclusive guest list in pro sports, to which only fellow Masters champions and current August chairman Fred Ridley have been invited.
In accordance with Augusta’s usual secret, the party starts at 7:15 p.m. and ends promptly at 9:00 p.m. No spouses or media are invited, as are other Augusta National members. Every photo from the party is officially published, and people inside rarely discuss what is going on on there.
It is understood that the host golfer also chooses the menu.
Nonetheless, this 12 months it will be served especially spicy and with some awkwardness because the specter of LIV Golf is fast approaching, with its contracted players appearing on the Masters for the primary time for the reason that recent competition began last summer.
![Group photo from the 1958 Champions Dinner. Missing this year's winner Arnold Palmer, who hasn't won the Masters yet, so he hasn't been invited.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008856564.jpg?w=1024)
Yes, because the year’s first major championship kicks off, the golf civil war between the PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV threatens to once more dominate the proceedings.
And the Champions Dinner will be no exception.
While LIV golfers are suspended from the PGA Tour, Masters may invite anyone so long as they meet the eligibility criteria. This implies there are 17 LIV players out of the present roster of around 90, six of whom are former Masters champions and subsequently eligible for this year’s dinner.
When golf legend Ben Hogan began the tradition in 1952, he wanted players to be capable of “reminisce, exchange banter and loosen up” before the beginning of a tournament.
![The current number one ranked player, Scottie Scheffler, chose this year's Masters Dinner menu, which includes cheeseburgers and tortilla soup.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008821800.jpg?w=1024)
However the animosity between rival groups of players doesn’t bode well for a calming evening.
Definitely 1992 Masters champion Freddie Couples isn’t pleased.
“Just go on the LIV Tour but stop blowing up something I have been a component of for 42 years” he said.
![Menu for Masters Dinner 2023.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008856827.jpg?w=819)
On Tuesday, the 63-year-old couples will dine with Garcia and Mickelson and 4 other LIV players who’ve all won the Masters.
Two-time Masters winner and contestant Ben Crenshaw predicted the meal would be “difficult”. “Golf Today” on the Golf Channel that “there will probably be tension in just a few moments.”
Others are less reserved.
This week, golf commentator Gary McCord, who was fired from Augusta in 1994 for saying on air that Augusta’s golf was “waxed in a bikini,” said golf.com This the concept LIV players should be at Masters in any respect is a “steaming, hot mess”.
Still, some hope for peace.
In accordance with certainly one of TV’s top golf analysts, who prefers to stay anonymous for fear of losing August’s credentials, this can be left to seniors to take the lead. “I’m expecting certainly one of the older masters, for instance [87-year-old] Gary Player, say something that will move the room and possibly even heat it up a bit, but at the tip of the night it will all be over and everybody will be high-quality,” suggests The Post.
![Golf pioneer and 1992 Masters winner Freddie Couples was highly critical of players who joined LIV Golf.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008855693.jpg?w=683)
“Personally, I would not find it awkward,” adds the caddy of 1 golfer playing Augusta this week, again on the condition of anonymity.
“Why? Because it could mean I won the Masters, and as a golfer there’s nothing higher.”
It’s infrequently that a dinner of champions makes headlines. But when it does, it’s always for the incorrect reasons.
Referring to Woods as “a little bit boy”, he told reporters to inform the brand new master “to not serve fried chicken next 12 months” before adding “or green cabbage or regardless of the hell they serve”.
![Legendary player Ben Hogan (seen here with his Masters trophy in 1948) started the tradition of the Masters Dinner in 1952 as a way to socialize before the tournament began.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008855750.jpg?w=941)
he doesn’t.
Woods, barely in his twenties, served cheeseburgers, fries and milkshakes.
Zoeller, then 45, was promptly abandoned by several of his sponsors and compelled to eat a meager pie.
Nevertheless, he remains to be welcome in Augustów.
Meanwhile, Scheffler selected the 2023 Champions Dinner, which incorporates a cheeseburger and firecracker prawn appetizer, a Texas ribeye steak foremost course, and warm chocolate chip cookies to complete off.
Typically, winners’ menus range from predictable – 11 of the last 20 winners selected steak – to fiercely patriotic.
For instance, when Scotsman Sandy Lyle won in 1988, he served haggis (sheep’s liver, heart and lungs mixed with onions and oatmeal) and even wore a kilt for the occasion.
![Gay Brewer, Fuzzy Zoeller and Herman Keizer chat at the Champions Dinner at the 1997 Masters Tournament.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008856569.jpg?w=1024)
Meanwhile, Englishman Nick Faldo opted for fish and chips, while Canadian Mike Weir opted for venison from elk and wild boar.
Following his 2012 win, Bubba Watson served Caesar Salad, grilled chicken breast, macaroni and cheese, and confetti. Then, two years later, when he won the Masters for the second time, he prepared the very same menu again.
Meanwhile, for the TV golf analyst, this year’s champions dinner may go by without incident, largely resulting from the absence of 1 key player on the meal.
“The irony is that the guy who has been the best skilled voice of the PGA Tour – Rory McIlroy – isn’t invited to dinner and has no say in any conversations which may occur,” he says.
![South Africa's Charl Schwartzel became the 2011 Masters Champion. Here he prepares the traditional South African](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008856828.jpg?w=1024)
Which might be a great thing. last 12 months McIlroy spoke about how golf’s civil war affected his friendships together with his European Ryder Cup teammates like Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia who all jumped ship to LIV. “I would not say I even have a great relationship with them in the intervening time,” he told the press on the BMW PGA Championship in Wentworth, England.
Sergio Garcia also said there was “no way” the connection would ever be the identical.
While this is gloomy for players on a private level, it is the sort of stalemate that makes you wonder how golf will ever get out of what appears to be a civil war with no clear conclusion.
It actually makes you’re thinking that.