...and you only get it IF you win the Masters. Of course, this is coming from someone, me, who loves food and doesn't consider golf a sport. (Bucky's definition of sport is considerably broader. If you can drink beer while you do it, it isn't a sport.) With what might be the best Bucky's World yet, here's our Friday guest poster. EL
I spent some time figuring it out this past weekend, and according to my calculations, I've spent almost eight years of my life either playing golf or fly fishing.
The remaining years I've just frittered away.
Golf season starts for me the first full weekend in April, when the beauty and grace of azaleas and dogwood in full bloom are juxtaposed against the roar of the crowd on Amen Corner.
The golf season starts with the Masters Invitational, no matter how many rounds I've managed to play in the preceding couple of months, and the Masters Invitational begins next Thursday. ...
Masters Week, however, begins on Tuesday night when last year's Masters champion hosts the Champions Dinner for past winners and a few, select honored guests. (I myself have never been invited.) Not only does he host the dinner, he also selects the menu.
When Tiger Woods hosted his first Champions Dinner in 1998, the menu was cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, french fries, milkshakes. By the time Tiger hosted his next dinner in 2002, he had won several million dollars in prize money and signed significant endorsement contracts. His tastes had changed accordingly. The menu was Porterhouse steaks (and chicken for the more health conscious) with sushi appetizer.
Most champions select a menu that reflects who they are. Ben Crenshaw, who was born in Austin, Texas, and played college golf for the Longhorns, selected barbecued beef, chicken, ribs and pulled pork for his dinner in 1996.
Nick Faldo, three-time winner of the Masters and a Brit, selected Shepherd's Pie (1990), steak and kidney pie (1991) and fish and chips (1997). Sandy Lyle, the only Scotsman to have won the Masters, served haggis, mashed potatoes and mashed turnips for his dinner. Had he ever won another Masters, the Champions Dinner might have been cancelled. He didn't.
Mike Weir, the only Canadian winner, served caribou, wild boar and Arctic char.
The menu that I think would likely most impress the Sandbox? Vijay Singh hosted the 2001 dinner. The menu was seafood tom kah, chicken panang curry, baked sea scallops with garlic sauce, rack of lamb with yellow kari sauce, baked Chilean sea bass with three-flavor chili sauce and lychee sorbet.
Imagining that the Sandbox had, say, a "Commenter of the Week Dinner" and because of the exceedingly insightful comment you made last Friday, you got to select the menu for tonight's soiree, what would it be? (Remember, it should in some way reflect who you are.)
(AP photo)
