In 1952 Ben Hogan, the defending Masters champion, hosted a dinner for the ten other men who had won the event. From this simple idea came one of the Masters traditions, that on the Tuesday before the tournament all past champions, The Masters Club, dine together. The reigning champion chooses the menu.
Will this year's preview dinner become a new tradition?
A week before the Masters dinner Angel Cabrera will host a "preview dinner" at the Shadow Hawk Golf Club in Houston to raise money for his foundation. The menu will be exactly the same as that for the Masters Club, and will include Argentine beef, Argentinean wine and a sauce that Cabrera will make himself.
One hundred guests will be invited to the dinner paying $1,000 dollars each for his charity. Ping, his equipment sponsor, will give the guests a putter each and, before dinner, Cabrera will conduct a clinic before giving everyone an autographed Masters flag.
Cabrera has stuck to another, unofficial, tradition of highlighting the traditional food of the winner's homeland. Sandy Lyle's guests sat down to a meal of haggis, mashed potatoes and mashed turnips. (They may have more relieved than usual that year to know that they don't have to eat what champ has picked for them, but may also chose off the usual Augusta clubhouse menu).
When Faldo won, the next year's dinner was fish and chips. Bernhard Langer chose Wiener schnitzel in 1986, and Black Forest torte the second time around, while José Olazábal went for paella and tapas.
