The winner of the Masters Tournament gets a green jacket, an elegantly engraved trophy and a lifetime invitation to play one of the most revered events in professional golf.
He also has the chance to plan a dinner the next spring for other Masters winners (and to pick up the check for one of the most exclusive evenings in sports).
“How rare is it to get everybody like that in a room where it’s just us?” Scottie Scheffler said hours before his dinner last year with 32 fellow Masters champions and Fred S. Ridley, the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, the site of the tournament.
“There’s nobody else,” Scheffler continued. “There’s the chairman and then there’s us.”
And at a tournament where the concessions are legendary, the pressure is forever on the new champion to pick a menu that befits the moment. Tiger Woods offered up cheeseburgers and milkshakes after his debut Masters victory in 1997, but over the years built menus that included sushi, porterhouse steaks and chocolate truffle cake. Sandy Lyle went with haggis after his 1988 win. Vijay Singh’s selection of Thai food thrilled some players and flabbergasted others.
