The Chevron Championship Continues Building Legacy by Honoring Legends

Credit: Steve Eubanks

No one ever mistook Brittany Lincicome and Stacy Lewis for culinary critics. Both can whip up a mean potato salad to go with smoked brisket and beans, but they would be more likely to explain cold fusion than know the flavor combinations and proper pairings for foie gras.

So, the two of them had a grand old time on Monday night sitting next to Morgan Pressel in the banquet room of the Post Oak Hotel in downtown Houston. Pressel is one of those foodies who can talk about how the oaky notes in a Cabernet Sauvignon enhance the nutmeg dusting on an appetizer. She didn’t make those exact comments at The Chevron Championship Champions Dinner, but she did have nothing but praise for each course during what proved to be one of the most memorable meals in the history of the event.

“It was amazing,” Lincicome said of the evening hosted by 2024 champion Nelly Korda with a menu prepared by famed chef Thomas Keller. “The presentation and having flowers as part of every course and having a Michelin-rated chef prepare this incredible meal for us, it was so special. I took pictures of every course. The combinations of things. Caviar, I would never eat that, but with the fruit, it worked so well.”

Keller owns the famous French Laundry in Napa Valley, which was the perennial winner of the “Best Restaurant in America” award from Restaurant magazine until the criteria changed to disallow multiple winners. Not everyone at the event knew that – Pat Bradley doesn’t subscribe to “Bon Appétit” – but they all knew that they were part of something different.

“Chef Keller was amazing,” Korda said. “It was really funny that everyone, after every single course, didn’t matter if it was the caviar, the cream of mushroom soup, I just kept getting this (applause) and ‘Great job.’ I was like ‘Yeah, I was in the back making this all day for you guys.’

 

“I sat at a table with Juli Inkster, Lexi (Thompson), Pernilla (Lindberg), right next to me too and Lilia (Vu),” Korda said. “So, I think just among the table we were sharing stories. It’s such a great group because you get all the past champions, (from the) first winner of this tournament, and then you have Amy Alcott who started the tradition of jumping into the pond. You get everyone in a group, which you never get. It’s such a fun setting.”

The meal was only part of the evening. Afterward, Lexi Thompson went to a fitting for some custom deer-skin boots. “I’m a Florida girl, I don’t know anything about boots, but they’re really nice,” she said. Then it was off to a rooftop bar where Alcott and others kept the active players entertained well into the night.

“You don’t get to see Pat Bradley or Judy Rankin all the time, or even Juli Inkster and Pat Hurst, who are two of my favorite people,” Lincicome said. “To sit back and listen to them telling stories about things that happened in the 1970s or 80s or having Amy Alcott talk about winning a golf tournament at my home club where I live now (in Tampa, Fla.), the shots she hit and what she shot. I’m like ‘How do you remember all that? I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.’ She and I took a picture, and I’m going to have it framed and put it in our club.

“There’s nothing like it. Just sitting back and being a fly on the wall is incredible.”

On Sunday, legends including Bradley, Alcott, Jan Stephenson and others played in a Junior Legacy Pro-Am, a fundraising event featuring past champions and members of LPGA*USGA Girls Golf. And for the third year in a row past champions have been given Bentleys as courtesy cars.

“Putting us up in the hotel, the helicopter ride (from Carlton Woods to the Champions Dinner downtown), a free facial and massage, the dinner, Chevron really understood that they were taking an amazing event out of Palm Springs and moving us to a different city, and some people were going to have problems with that, so they’ve done an incredible job of keeping some traditions while creating new traditions,” Lincicome said. “They’re doing everything they can to make it better; they want to make it better.”

 

And even though she is the newest member of the prestigious past champions club at The Chevron Championship, Korda wholeheartedly agreed.

“(Chevron CEO) Mike (Wirth) and (his wife) Julie have done an amazing job,” Korda said. “They’ve really, really stepped it up and made sure that this event has traditions, and for them to be this dedicated to it, props to them. I can’t wait to see where this tournament goes under their leadership.”