AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy’s Tuesday nights during Masters Weeks will look very different for the rest of his life. Turns out, his dinner plans on Tuesday night last year were also at Augusta National’s clubhouse—but it led to him finding himself in a hilariously awkward situation given what transpired just days later.
McIlroy and his buddy Justin Rose—who he’d end up defeating in a playoff at the 2025 Masters—had dinner plans with a few Augusta National club members at the clubhouse on Tuesday night last year. McIlroy described driving down Magnolia Lane on Tuesday last year and not exactly knowing where to go. As he drove his car into the Founder’s Circle in front of where Augusta National’s clubhouse sits, he thought he might valet his car as he normally would. Then he peered up to the veranda outside the second-floor library where the Champions Dinner is held.
McIlroy observed a bunch of past champions having cocktails on the veranda. The Champions Dinner festivities were just getting started. Rather than everybody seeing him—a regular Masters participant without an invitation to golf’s most coveted dinner—McIlroy decided against getting out of his car, instead veering off into the player parking, even if that meant a longer walk.
“I’m like, ‘I don’t want to valet and get out—they’re going to see me and it’s going to be weird,’ ” a joyful McIlroy said in his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday. “So I had this really awkward moment with it all last year.
“Thankfully that was the last time that I needed to do that.”
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Of course, this particular Tuesday evening will be very different for McIlroy as he presides over the Champions Dinner this year.
He was asked to give a hint at what his speech might look like in front of the other past champions at Tuesday night’s evening. He didn’t go that far but did give us a little window into his mindset ahead of the big evening.
“I have a few remarks that I want to make. I’m not going to say it all here, I’ll wait for tonight, but I have thought about it a lot,” McIlroy said. “But talking in front of that group, I want to say the right things and make sure I get my feelings across of how grateful I am to be a part of that group.”
McIlroy also described the difference of how he feels in the leadup to this year’s Masters compared to years past.
“I think for the past 17 years, I just could not wait for the tournament to start, and this year I wouldn’t care if the tournament never started,” McIlroy laughed.
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The golf universe has sufficiently dissected his menu selections. He quipped about not adding more Irish food into the mix “because I want to enjoy the dinner.”
Mainly, you can imagine he feels a little about not being able to join Rose and his other friends for dinner on Tuesday night. This is a standing reservation of the highest order.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
