At less fabled Champions Dinner, wowed guests and $4,000 caviar

Scottie Scheffler’s Champions Dinner menu at the Masters two weeks ago wasn’t what you’d call haute cuisine. This assessment is in no way meant to slight cheeseburger sliders, Papa Scheff’s meatball and ravioli bites or chocolate-chip skillet cookies — delectable, all of them — but more so to point out that you’re unlikely to find any of these items coming out of the kitchen at, say, Noma or Le Bernardin.

Nelly Korda’s menu, on the other hand? Someone call Michelin!

Korda is not (yet) a Masters champion but on Monday evening she fulfilled her own Champions Dinner hosting duties — not at Augusta National but at the Club at Carlton Woods, in Houston, the host site of this week’s Chevron Championship, the LPGA’s first major of the season.

Korda won the event a year ago, which meant she was responsible for helping to curate the menu for the gathering that was attended by other recent winners like Lilia Vu, Jennifer Kupcho and Patty Tavatanakit; veteran champions like three-time winner Amy Alcott (1983, ’88 and ’91) and Juli Inkster, who won her second of two Chevron titles in 1989 (“always so much fun to be around,” Korda said of Inkster); and at least one former secretary of state in Condoleezza Rice.

The origins of the Chevron Champions Dinner are murky. An LPGA media official said the event has had “some form” of a dinner in place “for many years,” but that it became more formalized in 2022 when Chevron assumed the title sponsorship and brought in super-chef Thomas Keller to oversee the menus. Keller isn’t only an acclaimed chef — he is the only American-born culinarian to own two three-Michelin-starred restaurants — but he’s also an avid golfer. So, yeah, he’s kind of perfect for the job.   

For last year’s dinner, Keller helped Vu piece together a menu that paid homage to her Vietnamese roots. One of the stars of the show was a dish Vu’s mother makes, bo kho, which is a flavorful beef-and-vegetable stew. “I know he’s so GOAT’ed,” Vu said of Keller’s skills, “so, like, just let him do whatever he wants.”

Korda said she also had a nice working relationship with the superstar chef, calling it “a dream come true, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Like Vu, Korda also wanted her menu to reflect her ancestral land — in her case, Czechoslovakia, from where both her parents hail. So Korda and Keller got to work, and the results did not disappoint.

The first course featured bigeye tuna tartare flavored with cucumber, green apple and dill, and also Regiis Ova hybrid caviar, which was sourced from a caviar company co-founded by Keller. According to the Regiis Ova website, the Kaluga Hybrid that Korda served is “large and firm and its flavor is pure with a pleasant light after taste.” You can pick up 30 grams (approximately a single serving) for $128 or, for larger affairs, 1,000 grams for $4,000.

Next came a cream of mushroom soup, followed by the main event: herb roasted filet of American wagyu beef with sides of Greek salad, Sacramento Delta white asparagus, garnet yam gratin and glazed mushrooms.

Dessert brought another nod to Korda’s heritage by way of ovocné knedlíky, which are Czech-style dumplings with berries. “I just love fruit filled dumplings,” Korda said in L.A. last week. “That’s pretty much what it is. Something that I grew up eating.” She said her grandmother’s recipe “is the best one I’ve ever had,” but this was before she had tried Keller’s, who paired his version with vanilla anglaise.

Korda’s dinner mates’ take on the menu?

Sounds as if there were more than a few clean plates. After each dish was plated and presented, Korda said her guests literally applauded. “Doesn’t matter if it was the caviar, the cream of mushroom soup,” she said, adding with a wry smile, “Yeah, I was in the back making this all day for you guys.”

Korda said she shared a table with Lexi Thompson (the 2014 champion), Pernilla Lindberg (2018), Inkster and Vu. There were no rousing speeches at the dinner, Korda said, but the mix of golf greats from across generations still produced much banter and storytelling. “You get everyone in a group which you never get,” Korda said. “It’s just such a fun setting.”

As for her own take on Keller’s handiwork?

“Amazing,” she said. “I was so full by the end of it.”