WE Are The Chammmpions!! (sort of)
“A new Masters tradition blooms in the desert — 'Rowdy Boys' style. That means a hard-core celebration of golf, brotherhood, and making the most of every living minute."
I confess that when I walked into Talking Stick Casino in Scottsdale last night wearing my bright green Masters sports jacket and yellow tie, I felt a little dorky. But as soon as I was cocktailing with my other “Masters Champions” on the 15th floor penthouse patio of Orange Sky restaurant, I felt pretty damn cool.
Don’t get me wrong — it’s quite possible that we were now just a collectively dorky looking group. But as far as we were concerned, that was part of the cool. The 13 of us had each, indeed, won tournaments at the golf club we all play at — and our Dinner Chairman Todd Lynch called out each victory before we all sat down.
But the real reason this group of guys from Ancala Country Club — known as the “Rowdy Boys” — were attending this self-created tribute event was because we thought it was hilarious and we knew it would be epic fun.
At about the same time we entered our private dining room, 2,000 miles away the real Masters winners were sitting down for their traditional Champions Dinner at Augusta National. Last year’s winner, Scottie Scheffler, had put together a menu with cheeseburger sliders, Texas-style chili, wood-fired cowboy ribeye or blackened redfish and a chocolate chip skillet cookie for dessert.
Back in Arizona, we started with a burrata plate, shrimp cocktail, and caesar salads. Plus a couple bottles of red.
Todd and Danny Corcoran, two of the Rowdy Boy veterans, came up with the Champions Dinner idea two years ago. And when we all heard about it — we instantly knew it was a winner.
I stumbled upon this group of guys accidentally five years ago when I joined Ancala C.C. without knowing a single soul. It was a more inexpensive and less pretentious golf club than most other places in Scottsdale where I did have friends.
The Rowdies’ reputation preceded them, and when I was invited to play in the game, I didn’t know what to expect. What I could not possibly have known was how these strangers would become truly great friends in such a short period of time. Whether it’s weekly golf, going to hockey games, trips to Vegas, or just hitting our favorite spot in Scottsdale to watch football, it’s always big laughs. And there is almost never a day when one or more of the guys isn’t available for some hang time.
Every guy in the group remarks on how we have never experienced a group of friends that is this large and lasting. Any one of us asks anything of another, and the answer is ‘yes’ without exception.
As we started digging into our first course, Todd led the toasts by telling the group why he and Danny created the dinner, and what the event and the Rowdy Boys meant to him:
“I’d been kicking around the idea of starting a Masters dinner for my core group of friends for several years now. It started as somewhat of a joke thinking it would be a hilarious stunt for 15 guys to head out in public on The Masters Champions Dinner night all donning green jackets. I also was mostly bitter about the fact that I watched my good friend Mike Weir attend the actual Champions Dinner at Augusta each year — knowing that there was zero chance I could ever be in that room. The stories he has shared with me over the years are simply priceless. So why not start my own Champions Dinner??
“But my lighthearted attempt at celebrating the Masters and just getting the guys out for a bite and a few pops turned into so much more. It became an opportunity each year to celebrate each other and our unique friendships. To celebrate the ‘Champion’ in each of us. As business owners, husbands fathers, sons, brothers and FRIENDS!!”
Then Todd pulled the old Thanksgiving move, where we go around the table and each of us makes a toast expressing our own thoughts.
One thing about the Rowdies: You’d better have crocodile-thick skin. The jokes come hard and fast, and so do the nicknames (my first one was “Fife”). If you can’t hang, you won’t hang. So the toasts were a mixture of sincere sentiments and also hilarious stories — along with a slew of interruptions in the form of pointed jabs from the peanut gallery.
When it was my turn to ad-lib, I articulated something that was already kind of an inside joke between us all, but that I had never said out loud to the full crew:
“I am, just on the face of it, way out of place in this group. I’m a 5’ 8,” Jewish Democrat who ran political campaigns in Chicago. I couldn’t be more out of place unless our skin color was different!”
Suffice it to say, they all got the joke. And as we were all clinking glasses after I ended with some sincere gratitude, one of my favorite fellas, Tommy Storey, spoke up:
“It’s nice to have a token!”
We roared again.
Later on, as I exited the casino and walked toward my Uber vehicle, a group of guys stopped me. One asked: “What the hell are you wearing?” I facetiously told him that all of the living Masters winners decided to have their traditional Champions Dinner in Scottsdale this year. They laughed. And the guy asked for a photo together.
Before I closed the car door, I explained to them that this was really a group of “Rowdy Boys” from Ancala who are just obsessed with the Masters and who jump at any ol’ reason to get together and have a blast. The guy paused for a second, and then said: “Cool. That sounds incredibly cool.”
He’ll never quite know.
MICHAEL GOLDEN is a 7 handicap who laments the fact that he is no longer a 6. He is also the cofounder of One Million Degrees and the author of STAYING ALIVE.
Oh and by the way I'm at railroad pass on my way down to Tucson as we speak
That was a fun story. I enjoy some of your little tidbits of down home events. I also get the Jewish news and Arizona mirror to keep up. I'll always be a Phoenician no matter where I am