‘No women at Augusta’ policy defended

A retired UK golf club manager has become the first to publicly defend Augusta National’s refusal to allow women to join since the issue exploded earlier this year.

Stewart Barnes, a former manager of Yelverton Golf Club in Devon, said that the policy was unimportant and no worse than any all-female club’s policy that excludes men.

The issue became a hot topic earlier this year when the world-famous golf club, which hosts the Masters every April, faced severe pressure because technology company IBM, which runs its website, appointed a woman – Virginia Rometty – as its CEO. Her four predecessors were all given membership of the club, but she was not. Both contenders in this year’s USA general election, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, then criticised Augusta National because no woman has ever been allowed to join the club in its 79-year history.

Several club managers and industry insiders also attacked the policy, while the editor of this website, Alistair Dunsmuir, wrote: “The problem for golf’s governing bodies is that stories like this reinforce negative stereotypes about the exclusivity of golf clubs. An inclusive image of the game is paramount to a healthy future. Male-only golf clubs and golf’s governing bodies should feel a duty to be custodians of the game and, with clubs closing and members converting to pay-and-play status in their droves, maybe the negative publicity for the last two biggest events [the 2011 Open Championship was also held at a single-sex golf club] on the golfing calendar could lead to a small but symbolic change?”

However, this provoked Mr Barnes, who is also a retired member of the Golf Club Managers’ Association, to comment.

He said: “Every year editors predictably latch onto the club’s policy of excluding women and write column inches about this issue. They castigate the club and its members, and other clubs who share the same views, for being sexist and living in another century.

“What they omit to mention is that women do this as well. There are women-only clubs and associations across the land, who chose to exclude men from their premises, but they are never castigated for their sexist policies! Do editors cast a ‘Nelsonian’ eye to this practice, because it does not fit their editorial?

“Should I start a crusade to allow men to join the Women’s Institute?

“Please, let us all see sense, allow clubs to set their own policies, regardless of gender, and find more important issues to campaign on.”

His comments have been supported by others who work in golf.

Vince Recine, a PGA Tour associate who is providing corporate hospitality to the 2013 Solheim Cup, said: “Women membership will happen when Augusta National wants it and not when the media wants it. Leave golf and its grand traditions alone.”

Roy Nix, founder of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals, added: “If we can tell Augusta who their members have to be, how long will it be before we start telling who you can marry, how many children you can have and what you can eat or not eat. It’s nobody’s business except the members at Augusta who they want as members. I’ve never understood why anyone would want to be where they are not wanted in the first place. Why would you want to join a club that doesn’t want you there?”