Masters of deflection
Augusta National male elite still denying membership to women
AUGUSTA, GA. – There was a serious electrical storm with high winds that blew down a number of trees — the exact number is classified, eyes-only — at the Augusta National Golf Club on Tuesday night.
Inconveniently, one of the trees fell on a massive public washroom facility near the 16th tee; not flattening it, as first reported, but doing signi f icant structural damage.
By Wednesday evening, we were assured, it would be rebuilt. Probably repainted, too. Maybe upgraded with digital toilets and fur-lined sinks and fibre-optic hand-dryers.
That’s the way it works at the home of The Masters. Money and unlimited labour and an order from The Boss, and all things are possible. Except a female member being invited to join the club. That is just not happening.
Is it a scandal? To some, it is. They feel that a woman having zero chance to belong to this exclusive private club — as opposed to a man having about a one-in-a-zillion chance — is shameful.
Martha Burk tried to mobilize a protest here nine years ago, and hardly anyone showed up. The Masters ran without corporate sponsors for a year or two, to show it couldn’t be money-whipped into an idea as radical as a female member, and then the issue receded. The message hasn’t changed. Women already play the golf course as guests. There is no policy against female members, the boys just haven’t invited one to join yet, as is their prerogative.
To the green-jacketed elite, the whole topic is an irritation, nothing more, and one day a year, every few years — the day of the chairman’s stateof-the-masters news conference — perhaps a minor embarrassment.
But the embarrassment doesn’t last. On the list of things that keep chairman Billy Payne awake at night, it probably ranks quite a bit below the azaleas blooming too early this spring, causing the 13th green to be only breathtaking beautiful for the CBS cameras.
If the Subair suction system that dries out the greens were to malfunction, now that would be a scandal.
If poa annua started creeping into the bent grass, that would be a scandal. Female members? Go on with you.
Wednesday of Masters week, which is reserved for Payne to address the media, produced an impressive array of questions about “the gender issue,” which Lee Westwood had deflected the previous day.
“What gender issue?” the Englishman said. “I’m a man.” And then looked down and back up, and nodded his confirmation.
Payne couldn’t afford to be that cavalier, especially after exposing his flanks to attack in his opening remarks by referring to all the initiatives the Masters and the ANGC were undertaking in an attempt to grow the game among young people. Presumably he meant young people of both sexes.
So, to a question about why major sponsor IBM’S new CEO, Virginia Rometty, wasn’t invited to join the club when all her male predecessors had been, he just dug out his copy of the Chairman’s Manual and read from the gospel according to Hootie.
“Well, as has been the case whenever that question is asked, all issues of membership are now and have been historically subject to the private deliberations of the members, and that statement remains accurate,” Payne said.
Actually, on the official news conference transcript, the words “membership” and “members” were both capitalized, but we are going out on a limb here and defying The Man. Lower case, it is.
Q: “Is it possible to elaborate further on why membership for Mrs. Rometty wouldn’t be considered?”
A: “I guess two reasons: One, we don’t talk about our private deliberations. No. 2, we especially don’t talk about it when a named candidate is a part of the question.”
Q: “Mr. Chairman, I note your concerns about the growth of golf around the world ... don’t you think it would send a wonderful message to young girls around the world if they knew that one day they could join this very famous golf club?”
A: “Once again, that deals with a membership issue, and I’m not going to answer it.”
Q: “Seems like a mixed message, Billy, is what he’s saying. You’re throwing a lot of money into growing the game, and yet there’s still a perception that certain people are excluded.”
A: “That is a membership issue that I’m not going to ... thank you for your ...” Q: “It sends ...” A: “Thank you.” The reporters didn’t quit. Karen Crouse of the New York Times waded in. “Mr. Chairman, as a grandfather, what would you say to granddaughters? How would you explain leading a club that does not include female membership?”
“Once again,” Payne said, “though expressed quite artfully, I think that’s a question that deals with membership, and ...”
“It’s a kitchen-table, personal question,” Crouse persisted.
“Well,” said Payne, “my conversations with my granddaughters are also personal.”
Someone else gave it the old college try.
“What would you suggest I tell my daughters?” he asked.
“I don’t know your daughters,” Payne said. “I have no advice for you there, sir.”
What I would suggest he tell his daughters is that you can be happy playing the game your whole life, without ever having any illusions about being admitted as a member of the Augusta National Golf Club.