of Masters Dinner of Champions it’s a nerve-wracking experience for first-time hosts. You want to hit everything out of the park, from appetizers to desserts to drinks. But one of the biggest questions of the Champions Dinner isn’t answered until a year after you sit at the head of the table for the first time.
The reigning champion and host of the dinner always sits between Ben Crenshaw, the unofficial emcee, and chairman Fred Ridley, at the helm. Next year, it’s up to newcomers to find their next place. Over the years, different cliques have formed at the table. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson sit to the left of the header. Zach Johnson and Jordan Spieth rub shoulders, along with Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson. Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman sit in the far corner. And so it goes.
“There’s no assigned seating, but a lot of people sit in the same chairs,” Scott said in 2023. “I like that, to be completely honest. I like the fact that you feel like it’s your place.”
After Scottie Scheffler hosted the dinner in 2023, he had to choose a place to sit that would become his.
“There’s a little bit of protocol,” Scheffler said at this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational about seating arrangements at the fabled dinner. “I’m definitely not going to sit in the area where Tiger and Jack sit. For example, there are some spots where you feel like you’re going to flow naturally.”
Scheffler would normally sit comfortably next to fellow Dallas native Spieth, but he didn’t want to give the 2015 champion a chance to prank him in front of everyone. “I definitely didn’t ask Jordan to sit next to him because he would have done something to make sure I had nowhere to sit,” Scheffler said with a laugh. He ended up asking Johnson and is now part of that table group.
IN This past year’s Champions DinnerRory McIlroy wowed with a menu that included wagyu steak, which the players raved about, yellowfin tuna carpaccio and a fine selection of wines from Augusta National’s famous cellar. As McIlroy sat between Crenshaw and Ridley, he surveyed the table layout and noticed something.
“It’s a big, long table. Like a U shape,” McIlroy said in the New heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce. “And in the bottom left corner, you’ve got Trevor Immelman and Adam Scott. And they just look like they’re having the best time. They’re just having the night of their lives. And I said to Adam and Trevor, If I don’t win this year, save me one spot down from you guys.”
Although McIlroy’s journey to Scott and Immelman’s corner will have to wait for at least another year, as he was only The fourth player in history to successfully defend his title at Augusta National.
This historic achievement now leaves McIlroy with a different question for the Champions Dinner: What’s on next year’s menu?
“I think everyone enjoyed the dinner. I tried to cook enough dishes that would please everyone. And I’m a big wine guy. I collect wine and have done so for the last 10 years, so the wine selection was something that was very important to me,” McIlroy said. “I went pretty good this year. It’s always Tuesday night, so I was thinking I could do a Taco Tuesday or something. We’ll see.”
McIlroy’s Winning the 2026 Masters was a different kind of victory than his cathartic triumph of 2025. In 2025, McIlroy crumpled to the ground overcome with relief that he had finally realized a lifelong dream. This time, McIlroy hit his winning putt and felt only joy.
“Nothing will ever top the euphoria of it all last year,” McIlroy said. “But this year was the validation. Like, last year I proved I could do it in this country and then I come back without my best stuff – I built a really big lead over two days. But to do it the way I did – I lost the lead on Sunday, came back and played really hard to make it happen – it just validates for me that this is where I need to be. This is the level I need to be at.”
McIlroy did, and now, he has another dinner to plan before, perhaps, taking his place next to Scott and Immelman.
