‘Way too spicy’: Inside the 2023 Masters Champions Dinner
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Fred Couples was holding his throat.
Sandy Lyle was steaming, every so often taking his napkin and wiping away the perspiration from the top of his head.
Nick Faldo thought it went a little overboard.
“Way too spicy,” Faldo exclaimed.
The tortilla soup apparently had quite the kick.
Thirty-three past Masters champions gathered Tuesday evening in Augusta National’s clubhouse for arguably the most anticipated Champions Dinner in recent memory. For the first time in tournament history, the room included active members of LIV Golf, six to be exact, including Phil Mickelson, who last year skipped the annual festivities for personal reasons.
If anyone expected things to get heated – besides the soup, of course – they were surely disappointed. In fact, there was not so much as a mention of the Saudi-backed league. The night was very much a celebration of reigning green jacket winner Scottie Scheffler.
“Regardless of all the different things that have been said in the last week or so, it went off without a hitch,” Lyle said. “Nothing from Gary Player or Mickelson.”
Added Chairman Fred Ridley: “I would not have known that anything was going on in the world of professional golf other than the norm.”
Larry Mize was the first past champion to arrive, a little over an hour prior to the 7:15 p.m. ET start time. One by one, the clubhouse balcony began to fill up. Couples strolled in with Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, and at one point, Couples ran into Phil Mickelson, who a few weeks earlier he’d called a “nutbag” on his radio show.
“I talked to Phil a little bit,” Couples said. “When we talked, he goes, ‘Yeah, I get beat up for a few things that I’ve done, which is understandable, and other things that I don’t do, I still get beat up.’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m not the kind of guy to keep harping on you. I will stop.’ But last night, Phil was fantastic.”
Couples’ interaction with Sergio Garcia, who had recently been characterized as a “clown” by Couples, went similarly smoothly, as corroborated by Jose Maria Olazabal, who said, “Sergio handled it OK.”
“I was getting my bang-bang shrimp and talking to him,” Couples said of Garcia. “I love Sergio. I’ve talked about Sergio for eight years on the radio about being a guy who I feel like is one of top 10 ball-strikers I’ve ever seen. If he’d ever heard that, I’m sure his chest would puff out. I call myself a clown. It’s the way I talk. … I wasn’t harping on his life or his character, I just saw what I saw. Last night we had a great chit-chat, but it was nothing to do with, ‘Are you made at me? Am I mad at you?’ We were talking about his kids and school.”
Couples also considered Fuzzy Zoeller’s account of Mickelson in a Golfweek story to be “a little harsh.” Speaking to Golfweek, Zoeller said of Mickelson, “I couldn’t believe how quiet he was. Phil took a very low profile. He didn’t say a word.”
According to Nick Faldo, when the past champs entered the dining room, posed for their group photo and then took their seats, Mickelson “snuck around next to Gary.”
“And as usual, Phil couldn’t stop talking,” Faldo added.
More than Player? Faldo: “Oh yeah.”
The menu for the night: firecracker shrimp and cheeseburger sliders for the appetizer; tortilla soup for the first course, followed by the main of Texas ribeye steak and blackened shrimp; sides included macaroni and cheese, brussel sprouts and french fries; and for dessert, a warm chocolate chip cookie skillet. Oh, and there was a Scheffler family favorite, tequila, provided by a company owned by a friend of Scheffler’s.
“It was a bit of a bounce around,” Faldo said. “But it was great.”
Everything was a hit; the soup just hit different. Charles Coody and some of the older attendees could only get through one sip. Lyle said was close to asking for some yogurt.
“I ate it,” Danny Willett said, “but I did look over at Scottie and asked if he was trying to kill us.”
Ian Woosnam might’ve been the only past champ to clean his bowl.
“It was spicy, but I liked it,” Woosnam said. “I’ve been in the Caribbean for the last four months, so I didn’t find it hot at all.”
The dinner began with Ben Crenshaw, the annual emcee, reading a letter written in 1954 by Ben Hogan to club co-founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts. He then introduced Scheffler, who a few hours earlier figured he’d get choked up while addressing the room full of legends.
“I’ll definitely get emotional,” Scheffler said before the dinner. “I wish I didn’t, but I always do. I don’t know what it is. The weight of everything hit me as I was leaving the locker room and they were setting up for the dinner. I was like, Oh, boy, here it comes.”
“He got up and gave a great speech,” Couples said. “He said he gets emotional on almost every speech he gives, but he got through it, and he was phenomenal.”
Added Scheffler: “I trembled probably the whole time, but I got through it.”
The same couldn’t be said for Mize. Crenshaw noted several meaningful anniversaries, including Tommy Aaron’s 50th and Mark O’Meara’s 25th, before Mize and Lyle, each competing in their final Masters this week, said a few words.
Well, at least Lyle did.
“He had a hard time trying to speak,” Olazabal said of Mize, the 1987 Masters champ. “Actually, he didn’t.”
Added Couples: “I’ll probably be the same when I finally stop. I’m not so sure I’ll tell anyone I’m stopping. … Larry being from Augusta, winning at Augusta, you can write a movie about that. He got up, he tried to get through it, and the best thing was that he stopped trying. It was very cool.”
When the clock hit 8:59 p.m., the night was done. There had been zero disruption, no hurt feelings. Everyone promptly filed out and headed to their cars.
None of them had any soup to-go.