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Here\u2019s a look at this year\u2019s Masters Champions Dinner photos with host Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n
McIlroy was a \u201cvery gracious and humble champion,\u201d according to Larry Mize. For Mark O\u2019Meara, who was paired with McIlroy when he won his first pro title at the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy \u201cshowed tremendous honor to be in that room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was his lifetime dream to be sitting with all these champions,\u201d Woosnam said. \u201cNever give up on your dreams, that\u2019s what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Nicklaus and Adam Scott were among the other speakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really have anything prepared,\u201d Scott said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t planned. So, I don\u2019t know if there was a theme at all. But I just spoke about the first time I played with Rory (at the 2008 Qatar Masters), flashed through his journey and just felt like I think all the champions were watching him trying to win last year, hearts up in their throat, living every bit of it with him because they\u2019ve all gone through something like that. And Rory spoke so well and expressed what it means to him. And I just felt like it was nice to acknowledge that, that we share that with him, and proud to have him in the Masters club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben Crenshaw, the annual emcee of the dinner, brought with him one of Ben Hogan\u2019s old drivers and passed it around the room for players to hold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was this wooden driver with a grip that was on pretty weak with a string reminder underneath it,\u201d said O\u2019Meara, who famously turned pro in Hogan\u2019s office in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a similar driver. \u201cIt had no loft on it, about 7 degrees, and no roll and bulge. When I even tried to hit the driver they gave me, it was like a low cut. I don\u2019t think anybody in there felt like they could probably hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Mize: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely toward the open and flat side. It was a no-hook driver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuzzy Zoeller, who died last November, was remembered. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the only two living champions to not attend, were missed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever transpires, we always wish the best for our fellow champions, and certainly Phil and Tiger with what they are dealing with,\u201d O\u2019Meara said.<\/p>\n
Then there was the dessert, which was, according to O\u2019Meara, \u201coff the charts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Player even had some.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ate three-quarters of it,\u201d Player said. \u201cThat\u2019s my weakness is I like sugar, and I\u2019ve got to try and stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 90-year-old Player, who says he\u2019s broken his age on the course \u201c3,400 times in a row,\u201d played with young countryman Aldrich Potgieter, 21, on Wednesday and was delighted to see that Potgieter had lost over 30 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to study in India on longevity to try and reach 100, and he said the three worse things for you are smoking, obesity\/overeating, and alcohol,\u201d Player explained. \u201cAnd this guy Aldrich can play. He\u2019s got a chance to win majors. If you lose weight, it\u2019s an asset. But if you carry 30 extra pounds on your shoulders, day in and day out, it affects the heart, your liver, even the hairs in your nose. What I\u2019ve learned is have two meals a day, and if you do have dinner, you have that (handful). You eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a poor person. I think it was Shakespeare who said that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for this night at least, Player and his champion company splurged.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said it in the room last night, but all of us in that room were the envy of the sports world last night,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cEveryone else would love to be in that room, and I certainly don\u2019t ever want to take it for granted. I tried to treat it as if it was the only time I would host a dinner. Hopefully, it\u2019s not. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut if it is, I tried to do it the right way, and I just hope everyone had a great night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2013 Ian Woosnam doesn\u2019t fancy himself a wine expert. \u201cBut I like drinking it, that\u2019s for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-573301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}