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Touchline • Issue 14 • 27
HISTORIC MOMENT
FOR HISTORIC AUGUSTA
ne of the world’s few
remaining bastions of male
only golf club membership,
Augusta National Golf
Club, has admitted its first
two female members. After eighty years
as an all male institution, the exclusive
golf club located in Georgia granted
membership to Condoleezza Rice, former
US secretary of state, and Darla Moore,
a partner at Rainwater, a Texas-based
private investment company.
The world renowned Augusta course,
which hosts the Masters golf tournament,
had come in for criticism over the recent
years for its exclusion of women. The
issue was most recently raised last April
when the club did not offer an honorary
membership to Ginni Rometty, chief
executive of IBM, one of the tournament’s
corporate sponsors. At the time President
Barack Obama sounded his disapproval.
Billy Payne, Augusta National chairman,
said that the latest move “is a significant
and positive time in our club’s history.”
The club, which opened for play in 1933,
counts among its members investor
Warren Buffett, former Citigroup chief
executive Sandy Weill and Microsoft
founder Bill Gates. However, Augusta
National haspreviouslyrefused todisclose
or discuss its rolls and has been heavily
criticised for the degree of its exclusivity.
For decades, club policy required caddies
to be black, and no African-American was
admitted as a member
until 1990.
“Consideration
with
regard to any candidate
is deliberate, held in
strict confidence and
always takes place over
an extended period of
time. The process for
Condoleezza and Darla was
no different,” Mr Payne said.
However, as Condoleezza Rice and Darla
Moore accept the chance to become
green jackets at Augusta, The Royal and
Ancient does not look like changing its
male-only club rules any time soon.
A statement from the club — which, in its
258-year history, has acted as the game’s
governing body in the majority of the
world, as well as overseen the running
of the Open — seemed to welcome
Augusta’s move but also reiterated its
own no-female policy.
“We read the announcement from
Augusta National with great interest and
we congratulate Condoleezza Rice and
Darla Moore on their membership,” read
the statement. “The rules of the Royal and
Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews specify
a male membership
and
this
policy
remains a matter
for our members to
determine.”
Muirfield,
near
Edinburgh, is another
club
renowned
for its male-only
¬restrictions. It plays
host to the 2013 Championship and is
one of three courses on the Open circuit
without female members — Troon and
Sandwich being the others.
Peter Dawson, the R&A’s chief executive,
has been consistent on the issue, saying
the organisation has no problem with
single-sex clubs of either gender. There
are many women-only clubs in the UK.
The difference is, of course, these
clubs do not hold one of the greatest
championships in the sport.
O
Male membership...
remains a matter
for our members to
determine”