The ‘incredible' untold stories from Jon Rahm's Masters Champions dinner

Jon Rahm opened upon the stories from his Masters Champions Dinner. Darren Riehl for GOLF AUGUSTA, Ga. — It is golf’s most carefully guarded closed-door event, but on Tuesday afternoon at the Masters, Jon Rahm propped open a window.

Hours before Rory McIlroy made his grand arrival to the Masters Champions Dinner, the 2023 green-jacket winner took a step back in time to his own Champions Dinner, sharing a never-before-told story from inside the room of golf legends. According to Rahm, the story begins on Champions Dinner Tuesday morning, when Rahm realized his celebratory meal would fall on a special anniversary: Seve Ballesteros’ birthday. Ballesteros was Rahm’s hero, and also the first Spanish-born player to win the Masters.

As Rahm and de facto master of ceremonies Ben Crenshaw delivered their opening remarks to the group, they made mention of the Ballesteros anniversary, and of Rahm’s role as a countryman at the club dinner. And then, Rahm said, something special happened. “Still probably one of the coolest experiences of my life,” he said.

“All of those greats had spent time with Seve, starting with [Jose Maria Olazabal] telling stories about Ryder Cups and previous matches with him. ” It wasn’t long before each of the legends in the room — from Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus to Tiger Woods and Mark O’Meara — began pitching stories of their own. “For somebody that’s researched as much as possible, those are stories I’ve never heard and maybe they’ve never told anybody,” Rahm said.