Rory McIlroy Reveals Champions Dinner For The Masters

Masters week is full of different traditions and one of the most special is the Champions Dinner, which takes place on the Tuesday evening of competition week.

The champion from the previous year hosts and one of their duties includes producing a menu for the evening, which for 2026 comes from Career Grand Slam champion Rory McIlroy.

Speaking in a press conference on Tuesday, the five-time Major winner revealed his menu, which consists of some mouth-watering food choices.

For appetizers, McIlroy has included four options, one of which is peach and ricotta flatbread with balsamic, hot honey and basil. There's also rock shrimp tempura, bacon-wrapped dates with goat's cheese and almonds and grilled elk sliders with a caramelized onion jam and roasted garlic aioli.

From there, a yellowfin tuna carpaccio is the starter, something that McIlroy explained comes from one of his favorite restaurants in New York called Le Bernardin.

For the main course, the past champions have a choice of either wagyu filet mignon or seared salmon, both served with traditional Irish Champ, sautéed brussels sprouts, glazed carrots with brown butter and crispy Vidalia onion rings.

A sticky toffee pudding is the dessert, while four different wines will feature throughout the evening, all of which have different meanings.

The 2022 Domaine Leflaive was the first white wine McIlroy liked, while the 1990 Chateau Lafite Rothschild was the wine he drunk the night of his Masters win. The 1989 Chateau d’Yquem comes from McIlroy's birth year and is one of the 36-year-old's favorite tipples.

Certainly, the menu possesses a more suave feel compared to other Champions' Menus we've seen previously.

In 1998, when Tiger Woods hosted, cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries and milkshakes were served, while Danny Willett's in 2017 consisted of mini cottage pies, a traditional Sunday roast and apple crumble and custard.

What's more, the champion is the person who forks out for the bill and, given McIlroy's menu consists of bottles of wine costing around $1000, it's safe to say it'll be among the more expensive meals he will buy.

Getting underway April 9-12th, McIlroy will be defending the title he claimed in a playoff against Justin Rose.

Completing the Career Grand Slam in the process, if McIlroy were to win again, he would become just the fourth player in Masters history to defend the title with Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods the only others to achieve the feat.