In the lead-up to this year’s Masters, much talk was made about the Masters Champions Dinner. But the chatter wasn’t about judging Scottie Scheffler’s meal choice.
Instead, attention was focused on how the former Masters champions who now play for LIV Golf would get along with the PGA Tour stalwarts in attendance.
After a year of frequent condemnations and hot takes from both sides of the LIV-PGA Tour feud, some expected fireworks when, for example, LIV’s biggest star Phil Mickelson came face-to-face with Tiger Woods.
The much-anticipated Champions Dinner went down Tuesday night, and if there was any drama, it hasn’t been revealed, but the one insight we do have into the proceedings so far is the official Champions Dinner photo released by Augusta National late Tuesday night.
Everyone is all smiles in the photo (which you can see below), as is to be expected. It does appear, though, that sides were drawn when choosing where to stand in the photo.
On the right side of the image, we see a quartet of LIV pros sticking together. Patrick Reed appears directly in front of Sergio Garcia, who has two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson smiling over his shoulder.
One spot to the left of Bubba looms Mickelson, the three-time Masters champ who was central to the creation of LIV Golf. Just two spots over from Phil, with only Hideki Matsuyama standing in the way, is LIV pro and 2011 Masters winner Charl Schwartzel.
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For the most part though, those five LIV attendees stuck together in the Masters Champions Dinner photo.
The one outlier among the six LIV pros attending last night’s dinner was Dustin Johnson. The 2020 champion has some long friendships with PGA Tour stars who have stayed on Tour. Tour players have also shown less animosity toward Johnson than any other defector. Which is why it’s no surprise that Johnson placed himself all the way on the left side of the photo, surrounded by Adam Scott, Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth and Trevor Immelman, to name a few.
As for the menu, Augusta National’s chefs served reigning champion Scottie Scheffler’s choice of cheeseburger sliders for an appetizer, Texas ribeye and blackened redfish for the main and warm chocolate chip skillet cookies for dessert.
We’ll have to wait to hear what the main topics of conversation were.