Elite golf club loses Open after voting to keep ban on women (who ‘play too slowly’)

I’m glad the vote against women means Muirfield won’t host Open . . . it’s the worst venue of them all

ONE of Britain’s most exclusive golf clubs faced a backlash last night after members voted to continue barring women from joining.

Muirfield will no longer be able to stage The Open after a ballot of its 750 members narrowly failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to change the rules.

And a key factor was said to be a letter circulated by members against the change, warning that accepting women as members could lead to slow play and affect the club’s ‘lunch arrangement’.

Although the letter has not been made public, the implication is that women play more slowly than men and allowing them to join would cause backlogs on the greens.

The decision was condemned by David Cameron as ‘ outdated’. The course, near Edinburgh, has been removed from the rota of venues allowed to stage The Open.

But 85-year-old golf commentator Peter Alliss – one of the few to come to the club’s defence – told BBC Radio 5: ‘The women who are there as wives of husbands, they get all the facilities; if somebody wants to join, well you better get married to someone who’s a member.

‘I believe the clubs were formed years ago by people of like spirit: doctors, lawyers, accountants, bakers, butchers, whatever they like, and they joined in like spirit to talk to amongst themselves or do whatever.

‘I want to join WVS [Women’s Voluntary Service] but unless I have a few bits and pieces nipped away on my body I am not going to be able to get in.

‘The crying baby has got the most attention here and I am sorry Muirfield are off the list [for The Open] at the moment.’

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘Scotland has women leaders in every walk of life. It is 2016. This is simply indefensible.’

Muirfield is owned by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, founded in 1744 and said to be the oldest recorded golf club in the world. The present links course has hosted golf’s most prestigious competition 16 times – most recently in 2013.

The ballot revealed that, despite the club’s board recommending admitting women, 397 – or 64 per cent – of Muirfield’s 750 members voted in favour of admitting women and 219 voted against. Without the crucial two-thirds majority, the policy of barring women from membership remains.

Announcing the results, club captain Henry Fairweather said he was ‘disappointed’ with the result of the vote.

But he said: ‘The Honourable Company is a members club and, as such, the members decide the rules of the club, including its membership policy. Women will continue to be welcome at Muirfield on the course and in the clubhouse as guests and visitors, as they have been for many years.’

Martin Slumbers, of The R&A, which organises The Open Championship, said: ‘The Open is one of the world’s great sporting events and, going forward, we will not stage the championship at a venue that does not admit women as members.’

IT could have been a disastrous day for golf. Instead it turned into an epochal one. No sooner had the members at Muirfield caused widespread revulsion the world over by rejecting a resolution to allow women to join than the Royal and Ancient Golf club responded by taking them off the open rota.

let’s spell that out: never again will The open be awarded to a course that does not have women members.

Yes, it should have happened decades ago, we all know that, but let’s celebrate it has finally happened, nonetheless.

As for the Muirfield custodians, the self-proclaimed Honourable company of Edinburgh Golfers, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Perhaps they could now have another vote on a change of name.

The Shameless company of Edinburgh Golfers would cover it. or dishonourable. Honestly, what is it with these people? You get to host The open and you don’t feel any affinity with the game to help it prosper and grow? You are one of the world’s most famous clubs and entrusted with the care of one of the finest courses on the planet in Muirfield and you don’t feel a modicum of responsibility?

You would think when even a traditionally reactionary establishment like the R&A thinks you have got this one wrong you would pause and consider; when the reasoned voices in your own club are pleading with you to do the right thing.

But no. despite a recommendation from their own club board, the resolution to admit women fell short of the required two-thirds majority.

Wow — there is no separating these people from their all-consuming sense of their own self-importance, is there?

Thank the lord, then, for the modernisers in the R&A who finally stood up and said: we’ve had enough of this.

during the past three years I had asked two chief executives of the R&A whether they could envisage an open being taken to a club with no women members and been depressed by the answers. Neither Peter dawson nor his successor Martin Slumbers were prepared to rule it out.

But when push came to shove, Slumbers and the R&A stood up for the game and three cheers to them for that.

Naturally, Muirfield’s stance came under heavy fire. You would expect Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to declare it indefensible. But standing shoulder to shoulder with the eloquent feminist were hardened open winners like Paul lawrie and Padraig Harrington, who grew up in traditional golf clubs.

Even Sir Nick Faldo, who won the open twice at Muirfield, did not feel the need for a diplomatic silence. ‘While I accept that private clubs have the right to create their own policies, I fully support the R&A’s forward-thinking initiatives towards inclusiveness and growing the game around the world,’ he said.

Not that the Muirfield members could care. You might think this hard to believe but I promise you: all too many of them regard hosting The open every 10 years as a massive inconvenience.

Go to every other club on the rota and you can tell the vast majority of members feel a sense of privilege and pride to share their course with the world.

Go to Muirfield and you can almost feel the distaste at having to share their precious acreage, even once a decade, with hordes of commoners.

of course, there is some residual sadness given the catalogue of great opens staged there. Jack Nicklaus so loved the venue he named one of his own designs Muirfield Village. only three years ago, Phil Mickelson won the title with one of the great final rounds in open history.

Ironically, perhaps, it is the fairest course on the open rota. But I have to say, and I don’t write this lightly, that during more than 30 years covering this great game I’ve never been to a more unpleasant golf club, or one I couldn’t wait to leave. Never mind that it’s an undeniably brilliant course. I wouldn’t set foot there in anything other than a working capacity if you paid me.

So let’s concentrate on the fabulous open courses who are welcoming — like Royal liverpool, Royal lytham and the newest member, Royal Portrush — and let Muirfield shut their doors and keep themselves to themselves.

Everything you need to know was there yesterday when they allowed their captain to read out a statement that he clearly did not agree with and one that left the poor man squirming with embarrassment. Really, how could you do that to your own captain? only at the Shameless company of Edinburgh Golfers.