Why the Masters food items may possibly be the grandest match tradition of them all

AUGUSTA, Ga. — It’s tricky to envision any sporting event at which foods performs a more critical position than it does at the Masters. The sandwiches marketed to spectators at circa 1985 charges, and obtainable to players and even reporters at no cost at all, have always been an elemental aspect of the match.

The status of these sandwiches — pimento cheese, egg salad, numerous some others — have only greater because November. What took place was a reporter asked Dustin Johnson, pre-tournament, to title his preferred Masters custom. He considered about it for a 2nd or two (the Masters has a great deal of traditions) just before saying, “The sandwiches.”

And that was before this year’s introduction of a new sandwich, rooster salad on brioche bun!

Really, you just can’t overstate the importance of food stuff, and meals, at the Masters, even in these pandemical times. The times are lengthy and we all need to have food. In addition, as if this needs to be said, superior meals increases any situation. The movie My Dinner with Andre is a rumination on the meaning of life, but what makes the motion picture so enduring is that its two protagonists are . . . having dinner! Otherwise, you might as properly be viewing Jaggi “Sadhguru” Vasudev executing his stand-up thing on YouTube.

The secret sauce to Masters week goes way beyond sauce. It is the chow. It is the cooked-to-buy hamburgers in the caddie residence on the driving variety, beloved by Sergio Garcia and several other Continentals. It’s the peach cobbler with vanilla ice product, the celebrated wine checklist (if you’re into that sort of thing), the sweet tea in the Push Developing, but only on a when-a-day basis.

Fred Ridley, like a politician on the campaign trail, should rate himself, each and every yr for the duration of Masters week. The club chairman, a slender, 68-yr-aged authentic-estate law firm, has a person command-efficiency meal just after one more by way of the match. The women enjoying in the Augusta Countrywide Women’s Newbie have a meal on the Friday prior to Masters Friday. The previous champions have a evening meal, hosted by the defending winner, on the Tuesday right before the Thursday. (The club chairman is invited on an honorary you-superior-behave basis.) There is a traditional Monday night supper for the amateurs in the subject. (This year it is being held on Wednesday night time.) There is a Sunday night members’ evening meal at which the new champion is toasted and feted.

Now is likely a great time to say, if you are lucky sufficient to have a credential that gets you in the clubhouse, that the greatest food possible, at Augusta National or pretty much any where else, is cooked breakfast in the grill room, adjacent to the men’s locker space. It’s the waffles. Also, the club symbol on the espresso cups. Also, you are at the Masters.

The club chairman — the top overseer of the system, the event, the membership roll and, of training course, the club’s in depth F&B software — was requested Wednesday about food items custom at the club. 

“Do I have a favored foodstuff merchandise?” Ridley stated. “Well, I like ‘em all, but I consider to continue to be away. We have all the sandwiches that you have on the golfing class down in the tournament conference place, and I applied to wander down there frequently. [Now] I attempt to remain absent.

“That’s one of the fantastic traditions of the Masters tournament, the pimento cheese and barbecue and egg-salad sandwiches, and we try to provide those people at a fair price. It is a good portion of the tournament. I like ‘em all.”

The chairman did not even get into Berckmans Spot, a gourmand’s paradise for the perfectly-heeled and effectively-related shut to but hidden from the 5th green. It’s much beloved for its oysters, and you can have a placing contest right before the main system comes.

Ridley talked about the annual dinners for the novice contestants and the earlier champions.

“I’ve been to very a couple more beginner dinners than I have champions dinners,” he reported. “I’ve most likely been to 40 novice dinners. I have a picture in my business of the to start with 1 I at any time attended and in the history, if you seem extremely closely, sort of in between two other heads, is Clifford Roberts. That was his last year as chairman. So that undoubtedly is a memory that I’ll generally cherish.”

That was at the 1976 Masters, when Ridley was the reigning U.S. Amateur champion. Roberts was one of the club’s co-founders. In 1977, frail and ill, a new chairman was named, Bill Lane, the president of a superior-close food stuff organization in Houston. In late September that year, Roberts took his own lifetime, beside a pond on the club’s par-3 training course, but not right before getting his favourite club waiter provide him a closing dinner in his space in the clubhouse.

“As to the Champions Dinner, and I genuinely believe this,” Ridley mentioned, “there is no tradition at Augusta Countrywide that is any much more crucial.”

Ridley has now attended 4 of these meals, commencing in 2018, his very first year as chairman. “What truly strikes me is the affection and the respect that every one of these gentlemen has for this place, and how proud they are to have on the inexperienced jacket. And also the camaraderie and the affection between them selves. It is a group like none other.”

The supreme club-within just-a-club.

“Dustin Johnson was terrific,” Ridley claimed of the Tuesday-night host. “He is so satisfied and so very pleased to be a aspect of the Masters Club, and we had a terrific turnout. We experienced 31 previous champions, a number of that were being not below in November. It was just a genuinely excellent celebration and a single that I was incredibly honored to be a portion of as a visitor.” That’s accurate, the chairman of the club is there as a visitor. The meal, commenced by Ben Hogan, is for the winners.

For his dessert study course, Johnson served peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream, together with apple pie. Peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream! Preferably, the ice product is softened by the warmth of the cobbler. That is when it is at its very best. If that variety doesn’t demonstrate the man’s good style, absolutely nothing will.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your opinions at [email protected]

Michael Bamberger

Golfing.com Contributor

Michael Bamberger writes for Golf Magazine and Golfing.com. In advance of that, he expended almost 23 decades as senior author for Sports activities Illustrated. Right after school, he labored as a newspaper reporter, initial for the (Martha’s) Winery Gazette, afterwards for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has written a selection publications about golfing and other subjects, the most current of which is The Second Everyday living of Tiger Woods. His magazine function has been highlighted in several editions of The Greatest American Sports Writing. He retains a U.S. patent on The E-Club, a utility golfing club. In 2016, he was supplied the Donald Ross Award by the American Society of Golfing Program Architects, the organization’s greatest honor.