Augusta National Golf Club formerly introduced itself to 2012 Monday when it announced that it admitted it first women members, Condoleezza Rice of Stanford and Darla Moore of Lake City. S.C.
The club, which hosts the Masters, was going to do this. It had to. Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National and the Masters Tournament, holds an annual state of the Masters address. Four months ago he decried golf's declining numbers. Fewer people are playing. Payne said the sport needed to grow, and his organization needed to help lead the cause.
Excluding half the population doesn't help.
As a private club, Augusta is entitled to conduct business in any fashion it chooses. There's a charm about the way they do it. Almost everybody else capitulates to the prevailing trends. Augusta National moves at its pace, and if you want to spend time there, you will, too.
Other sports worry about offering the biggest scoreboard, the most wired stadium and the most expensive sandwiches.
There at the front of Augusta National, for everybody to see, is a huge stately scoreboard operated manually; you see the men on ladders behind it, adding the latest numbers. That's Augusta speed. The rest of us go through life with a cell phone implanted in our ears. Get caught with one at Augusta National and it will be confiscated. You can buy a sandwhich there for about what you'd pay to make it.
The club is aware, of course, that there is life beyond the azaleas. Women were not put on the planet to be spectators, as the U.S. team's superb work in the London Olympics attests.
Pushing Augusta National to change undoubtedly set the cause back. Payne and company aren't going to be told what to do. They do not want to capitulate and they do not want to look as if they capitulated.
Admitting women members had to be their idea.
It was an idea they had no choice but to make.
they caved, very sad.
i'll never watch golf again, wait, i never do anyways
Posted by: luke hiwalker | August 20, 2012 at 12:52 PM
A private club can do whatever it wants. I'm indifferent to then letting females in. That's their choice either way.
Posted by: Nick | August 20, 2012 at 02:55 PM
What a totally overblown misrepresentation of a cause! Augusta's membership rules are totally irrelevent to any meaningful discussion of women's or anyone else's rights.
Probably 99.99999% of all women in the US will never be able to join Augusta no matter what they do... as 99.99999% of all men will not be able to either. Simply because they don't make enough money, or have enough celebrity or power to be invited.
Martha Burke and her group took this on for one reason and one reason only... to raise funds for her previously little known organization. Once again, it was all about the money!
It's a nice story, but it changes the lives of women as a whole, about as much as tossing a rock in the ocean changes the global sea level!
Posted by: John | August 22, 2012 at 11:53 AM
WOW! I LOVE this sesoisn. On top of that, you did this sesoisn in CORONADO, CA where I live! When was this shot!? If I had known you were in my town we should have grabbed coffee. I love that shot you got at Mootime with them and that firepit at the del is actually one of Scarlett's & my favorite secret places.
Posted by: Dale | September 22, 2012 at 02:06 AM