Salsa golf (literally golf sauce) is a cold sauce of somewhat thick consistency, common in Argentina. According to legend, it was invented by Nobel laureate Luis Federico Leloir in the mid-1920s at the "Golf Club" at the seaside resort Mar del Plata. Tired of eating shrimp and prawn with mayonnaise, he asked the waiter to bring various ingredients (vinegar, lemon, mustard, ketchup, and others) and experimented with different mixtures. The best-liked was ketchup and mayonnaise. Leloir's companions named the result salsa golf and its fame grew.[1]
There are several recipes, but the sauce is always mostly mayonnaise with a tomato-based sauce like ketchup. Seasoning is added to give the sauce an Argentine flavor, such as pimento, oregano, and cumin. In neighbouring Chile for instance, the growing wine market allowed for the development of a variant in 2001 by René Moncayo called renehonaise, which replaced the ketchup with red wine and olive oil for a more elegant dressing for seafood, especially scallops and Chilean abalone.
Salsa golf is used to dress salad, meat, and other food, and it is the main ingredient in a typical Argentine dish called palmitos en salsa golf.
In countries outside South America 'Salsa Golf' is more commonly known as Marie Rose sauce or Fry sauce.