![]() “It was kind of like how much food can you throw at everyone,” Morikawa said at the time. In 2021, at Kiawah Island, defending champion Collin Morikawa selected high-end barbecue utensils as his gift and a surf-and-turf blowout for his menu, which opened with Harding Park clam chowder (a cap-tip to the site of his 2020 victory), moved on to pan-seared cobia and fried chicken and peaked with platters of sliced porterhouse steaks with a wonderland of sides, presented, family-style, on the table. ![]() These days, the PGA of America still funds the dinner with a stipend - not that modern major winners need much financial help. Snead caught on and returned to his seat but did not open his wallet. Snead sprang up from the table, yelled, “B.S!” and bolted for the exit. We will be going retroactive to 1942 and that begins with Sam Snead.” “I think one of our past champions should help us do that,” Nichols said. News The 5 best PGA Championship storylines to follow at Oak Hill By: As the dinner drew to a close, Nichols stood up and announced that he wanted to help the PGA of America pay for the dinner. But Nichols spiced up the night by pulling a prank on Sam Snead. The menu was basic: steak, potatoes, salad, dessert. The only past champ missing was Ben Hogan. ![]() Bryon Nelson, Paul Runyan and Gene Sarazen were there. “It was a wonderful evening,” Nichols would recall later. The first dinner came about in 1965 when PGA of America officials asked defending champion Bobby Nichols if he would preside over a meal. The kickback atmosphere may owe something to its fun-loving roots. Unlike at the Masters dinner, the PGA Championship meal is family-friendly. Tiger’s choice of necklaces tells you something else about the occasion, too. In 2001, he opted for Tiffany sterling necklaces and bracelets, along with cigar humidors - fitting for a man who so often smoked the field. In 2000, his fellow champions received from him wooden clocks with four time zones, pegged to the cities staging that year’s majors. Woods was coming off two consecutive stints as host. The 2022 dinner at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla. I guess Tiger was allergic to it or something.” “I’m not sure what it was, but it wasn’t going to work for him. “It was really nice, except that (Emeril) has garlic in pretty much everything he does, so we had to make something special for Tiger,” Toms says. For the menu, Toms tapped the bayou, too, hiring Emeril Lagasse, the famed Big Easy chef, to craft a multi-course extravaganza. ![]() The next year, at the dinner, he showed off his taste, gifting his peers with alligator-skin belts in a nod to his native Louisiana. With that win, Toms showed off his touch. Then, in 2001, Toms earned that honor by claiming the Wanamaker Trophy at Atlanta Athletic Club, edging Mickelson by a shot with a crafty scramble-par on the final hole. “That’s probably because I’d never been invited.” “I’d heard about the dinner over the years, but I can’t say I knew a ton about it,” Toms says. And there’s no doubt the practice was firmly established by the time David Toms got a chance to host. But most agree that it was probably sometime in the early 1990s. When the gift-giving got started is more difficult to say institutional memories are hazy. The origins of the dinner date to 1965 (more on that in a minute). Much like the Masters, the PGA Championship has a pre-tournament champions dinner, hosted by the previous year’s winner, whose role is more expansive than that of his Masters counterpart.
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