THE WOODLANDS, Texas — When the Chevron Championship moved to The Club at Carlton Woods from its longtime home at Mission Hills Country Club there was a question about whether the winner’s leap into the water beside the 18th green would continue. With Lilia Vu and Nelly Korda both taking the plunge over the past two years, it’s safe to say that celebration will live on.
But there’s a new tradition that’s just beginning to take hold since the major championship moved to The Woodlands — a champion’s dinner.
No, not the dinner that the past champion hosts Monday, but the other one. The one that people don’t often hear about that happens on Sunday, right after the newly minted major champion hoists the trophy, completes all her media obligations and signs autographs for adoring fans. When all the adrenaline starts to subside, once the fatigue of the thrilling, yet grueling day finally begins to set in, that’s when it’s time to eat.
Steve Salzman, the CEO and general manager at The Club at Carlton Woods, offered the champion’s dinner to the inaugural major winner at the club, Vu, after she won in 2023. But Salzman didn’t get the response that he expected.
“She just said, ‘Could I just get some French fries?’” Salzman said about the request he got from Vu, who shared the basket with her mother and physiotherapist. “They sat and had that for a few minutes and that was about it. And off they went.”
Salzman assumes because Vu had to go to a playoff with Angel Yin, which made the final day of competition that much longer, and that Vu seemed eager to get to her next event, that’s likely why she kept her order short and sweet.
Nelly Korda, on the other hand, enjoyed the full experience after her victory last year.
Salzman got the idea of offering a champion’s dinner from the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
During a hospitality convention, Salzman connected with Kevin Bozada, the senior director of club and hospitality at Augusta National, and set up a meeting to pick his brain about the special touches the club implements during Masters week. The champion’s dinner was an idea that Salzman immediately adopted and offered to not just the winner, but also their support team.
“I really want the professionals to feel like they had a home for their tournament and I wanted them to experience what I think makes Carlton Woods so special, which is our hospitality,” Salzman said about implementing the dinner. “So that’s why I started offering it. And I was really honored and pleased that Nelly took us up on it.”
When Korda won in 2024, she and her team had arrived at the course before sunrise on Sunday morning to complete the third round which had been suspended the day before because of weather. By the time Korda completed 24 holes, wrapped up her media obligations and signed autographs in the dark for the fans who stuck around to see her, she and her entire team were quite hungry. And Korda jumped at the opportunity to have a meal inside the dining area of the ladies locker room at the club.
Korda, along with her parents and her team, were treated to a traditional salad, ribeye, steak frites, and bread pudding for dessert. Salzman says you could see the group fully relax, and let down as the adrenaline and culmination of Korda’s five consecutive wins was being absorbed by the team.
Salzman recalls taking a photo for the group at the end of the dinner to commemorate the moment in which everyone held up five fingers to celebrate Korda’s historic achievement. He says the group spent two hours dining and celebrating together before leaving the club around 10:30 p.m. That’s when Korda took a moment to express to Salzman how much the dinner meant to her and her team. It remains the only victory of Korda’s career that she’s taken the time to celebrate.
“She stopped after leaving the door, turned around, came back and put her hand up to shake my hand. And she just said, ‘Thank you so much for this. This evening was wonderful. See you next year,’” Salzman recalled in his exchange with Korda at the end of the night. “It was just very classy. It was real. We’re very proud to have her as a past champion of Carlton Woods.”
