No women members yet at Muirfield but club says ‘it’s complicated’

Open Championship venue Muirfield has yet to admit any women members, a year after voting to do so for the first time in its history.

After an initial vote narrowly failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required in May 2016, the R&A immediately announced that the East Lothian course would no longer be considered to host the Open.

That decision was instantly reversed when a second ballot in March last year saw members opt to admit women members by 498 votes to 123 in a turnout of more than 90 per cent.

However, change to the make-up of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which owns and runs the course, has not happened quite so quickly.

A statement released by the club read: “We are very pleased to say that we have had a number of women proposed to be members and the process is well under way.”

Speaking after announcing the result of the second ballot, club captain Henry Fairweather said fast-tracking women was not an option.

“Our members were quite clear that they wanted women to be treated, not in any artificial way, but to go through the same admissions process as men,” he said. “That means it will take a little time for women to become members.

“We’ve got quite a complicated admissions process and we have a waiting list. They don’t apply, they have to be proposed and seconded by members, but anybody who is interested in becoming a member of Muirfield, I would say: ‘Go for it’.”

It is understood that it could take up to another two years before the first female member joins Muirfield.

It last staged the Open in 2013 and the earliest it could do so again would be 2022.