Winning the Masters means choosing the menu for the champions dinner the following year. Ben Hogan came up with the idea in 1952, but not until 1986 did champions begin honoring their heritage by choosing traditional dishes from their home countries or regions.
Bernhard Langer, a West German in a green jacket, thought hard and chose … Wiener schnitzel! (the breaded and fried veal cutlet, not the fast food hot dog).
Rory McIlroy is the first player from Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland to win the Masters, having edged Justin Rose in a playoff Sunday to become the sixth player to complete the Grand Slam by winning all four major PGA tournaments. Could the traditional green jacket look better on anyone not from the Emerald Isle?
Now McIlroy must conjure the cuisine — rest assured it won’t be the Original Grand Slam off the Denny’s menu — that will reflect his Northern Ireland coastal hometown of Holywood, near Belfast. Many residents of Northern Ireland identify as British, but McIlroy has represented Ireland in the Olympics and other international tournaments. The cuisine all over Ireland is similar.
Would he dare go as authentic as Sandy Lyle, the son of a Scottish club pro who in 1989 requested haggis, a traditional Scottish dish that combines sheep’s heart, lungs and liver with oatmeal, onions and gobs of black pepper and is simmered for hours in a string-bound sheep’s stomach?
Yes, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer tucked in a bib and tucked into the haggis, accompanied by neeps and tatties, cute Scottish names for turnips and potatoes, mashed and buttered. Lyle enjoyed the proceedings while wearing a kilt.
“That seemed to make quite a statement,” Lyle told the Augusta Chronicle. “The older guys like Nicklaus had been to Scotland and knew what haggis was. But the newer ones … they weren’t too sure about it.”
Northern Ireland isn’t known for haute cuisine, or even for soulful peasant dishes like haggis. It’s known for soda bread. And a potato mashup called champ. And, of course, a properly poured Guinness stout.
That leaves a lot of leeway for a menu, the ability — as Masters winners from Scottie Scheffler to Tiger Woods did — to default to bone-in ribeye or porterhouse steaks.
Yet the British-based betting outfit William Hill already has published odds on what McIlroy will choose. The favorite at 2-1 is Irish stew, that hearty concoction of lamb, potatoes and vegetable. Checking in at 3-1 are soda bread, fish and chips, and Bushmills whiskey.
Champ, Irish-style chicken curry, and a dessert confection called Yellowman are listed at 5-1. Ardglass potted herring and a dessert called Fifteens are longer shots at 8-1.
Yet a self-proclaimed insider says McIlroy favors seafood. Michael Deane, the chef at a Belfast restaurant often frequented by McIlroy, gave the Belfast Telegraph details.
“I’ve looked after Rory for a long time,” Deane said. “I’ve done a lot of private stuff for him at the restaurant. He would be very into shellfish like prawns, scallops and crab. I would say he’ll have seafood platters to go around the table for all the golfers. Maybe with some different types of dressings. He likes oysters too, that would be the starter.”
This year’s menu was created by last year’s winner, Scheffler, a Texan since age 6, and included meaty chili with jalapenos and a wood-fired cowboy ribeye. All but three of the 35 living Masters winners attended.
More exotic are the menus from international golfers. Spaniard Jon Rahm in 2024 started with a half a dozen tapas, including one from his grandmother’s recipes. Hideki Matsuyama, the first champion from Japan, in 2022 splurged with sashimi, nigiri sushi and Wagyu beef.
Angel Cabrera in 2010 introduced an Argentine asado, well-salted cuts of meat including short ribs, blood sausage and sweetbreads cooked over an open flame. South Africans Trevor Immelman in 2009 and Charl Schwartzel in 2012 went with a spiced minced meat pie topped with an egg custard called a bobotie, a chilled seafood bar and a lamb-centric barbecue called a braai.
Canadian Mike Weir in 2004 featured elk, wild boar and Arctic char. And Vijay Singh in 2001 went with a Thai menu that included tom kha gai soup, chicken panang curry, garlic sea scallops and Chilean sea bass with a three-flavor chili sauce.
The least inventive? Perhaps Bubba Watson, whose menu 2013 was panned by fellow champions.
“What was the worst one? Oh, it was Bubba, wasn’t it?,” Nick Faldo said. “When we had Chuck E. Cheese. When we had a little hamburger and a little corn and a little ice cream. I think we had a milkshake as well.”
Irish stew isn’t offered at Chuck E. Cheese. McIlroy can piece together an authentic and satisfying menu by mixing traditional dishes with a couple widely enjoyed standards. Watson, of all champions, can’t wait.
“Congratulations @McIlroyRory on a hard fought win to earn the green jacket — well deserved,” Watson wrote on X. “Masters champion and career grand slam… not sure it gets any better!! Is it too early to ask what’s on the menu for the next champions dinner?”
By the time McIlroy is the featured guest a year from now, he might be holding his head higher as William Hill has made McIlroy the clear favorite at 8-13 to win the 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, known as SPOTY, easily overtaking early pacesetter Luke Littler, an 18-year-old English darts champion.
And look who is handicapped at 3-1 to receive a knighthood before the 2026 Masters: McIlroy. Coupled with his record $4.2-million purse Sunday, such a title certainly would make other Masters champions sit up straight at dinner.
“He might not need to win anything else to land the SPOTY award,” William Hill executive Lee Phelps said. “Come next year’s Masters, we make it 3-1 that he heads to Augusta as Sir Rory McIlroy.”
