Dragging Tiger in

[Kilroy]

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Times suggested in an editorial Monday that Tiger Woods skip the Masters next year because of the all-male membership at Augusta National Golf Club.

"A tournament without Mr. Woods would send a powerful message that discrimination isn't good for the golfing business," the editorial said.

Augusta National declined comment.

In interviews this month, Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson was adamant that a woman would not be among the 300 members at Augusta by the start of the Masters in April.

Johnson's comments were the first on the subject since he criticized Martha Burk and the National Council orazenly discriminate against women, that means others can choose not to support Mr. Johnson's golfing fraternity. That includes more enlightened members of the club, CBS Sports, which televises the Masters, and the players, especially Tiger Woods."

The editorial said Sanford I. Weill, the chief executive of Citigroup, and Kenneth Chenault, chairman of American Express, should "lead the way" for other prominent members and resign from the club.

Weill and Chenault have said Augusta National should admit female members. They did not immediately return calls seeking comment Monday.

Woods was headed to this week's Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Japan and not immediately available for comment.

Woods has said he would like to see a female member at Augusta National, but that the club had a right to set up its membership however it wanted.

"CBS will broadcast the Masters in April," CBS Sports VP LeslieAnne Wade said, declining further comment.

The network has had a series of one-year deals since 1956 to televise the Masters, the highest-rated golf tournament.

[Kilroy]

CHICAGO, Nov. 15 — The Rev. Jesse Jackson plans to organize a protest at Augusta National Golf Club if it doesn’t admit a female member before The Masters in April.

“IT’S AN INSULT TO all that America stands for, and the sponsors should not participate, and members should either change the situation or withdraw,” Jackson said Friday. “And I think the PGA has a big obligation to take a stand.”
Augusta has had an all-male membership during its 71-year history, but the policy was challenged by Martha Burk, the leader of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, and a very public fight ensued.
Earlier this week, Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson was adamant that a woman would not be among the private club’s 300 members before The Masters, golf’s most prestigious tournament. Johnson said the club may allow women membership, but not soon.
Claiming that Augusta is participating in “gender apartheid,” Jackson said he and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would help organize a picket line in front of the club during The Masters. He said he also plans “mass education” that would include passing out leaflets and talking to sponsors, members, networks and golfers.
“We support strongly the movement to end the gender apartheid at Augusta National Golf Club. The gender bigotry is as offensive as racial bigotry or religious bigotry,” Jackson said.
Officials at Augusta National could not be reached for comment.
Jackson said he has spoken Burk about his plans. Burk predicted Tuesday that it’s “more likely than ever” there would be protests outside the club during The Masters.
On Wednesday, the club released results of a survey it commissioned that indicated most people agree Augusta National is a private club that should be allowed to set its own membership policies.
Jackson disagreed, saying, “This is not a sorority or a fraternity. This is a very national, public organization. It is as much public as it is private.”

[Kilroy]

MSNBC

Tiger Woods says that he expects the Augusta National Society of Male Chauvinists to admit a female member by the time of the 2003 Masters next April. Don’t bet on it.

WHILE SOME MAY be cheered that Woods is gradually moving toward saying flat out that Augusta has to admit women or he’ll take his custom-made irons and go home, Woods, who isn’t even an Augusta member, has little if any influence on the membership policies of the 69-year-old golf club. Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, both of whom are Augusta members, would have more influence, but nobody’s asking them or calling them to account for not climbing the nearest rostrum to demand a revision of the club’s membership policies.

And what is being missed entirely is the certainty that Augusta will, in its own time, admit a female member, and it will probably be sooner rather than later. It’s not a new concept at the club that took until 1990 to admit the first of what is now a handful of African-American members. In fact, club chairman Hootie Johnson, the villain of the place — at least according to Martha Burk, the head of the National Council of Women’s Organizations who has launched a crusade against Augusta National —- is one of the people who has lobbied quietly for a woman member. Despite his redneck-sounding nickname, Johnson has spent much of his professional life fighting discrimination in the workplace and has championed the rights of women and minorities for years.
But if Johnson is neither a sexist nor a bigot, he is a man of principle. And to him, the principle of this affair is that Augusta National is a private club, and no one will tell him or his fellow members what to do or when to do it.
Augusta National hosts the only major sporting event that doesn’t kowtow and grovel to the television networks. Instead of bidding the rights to the Masters to the networks, it works on a year-to-year handshake deal with CBS for rights fees of just a few million dollars — a fraction of what they could make if money was what they were after, which it isn’t. They even sell a beer for the price of a beer — a couple of bucks — instead of the price of dinner for four like other sporting events.

They won’t allow more than four minutes of commercials per hour of broadcast — next year it will be commercial-free in a move to spare sponsors criticism — and reserve the right to decide which announcers work the tournament. They let women play their course as guests, and members say that it is rare to play a round there without seeing at least one woman also playing. Women can go anywhere in the clubhouse except the men’s locker room and a small men’s grill attached to the changing facilities. But they don’t provide women — or seniors, for that matter — with a separate set of tees.

In short, they do things their way. And their way has always been to eventually move forward, but on their own schedule. Leaping into change isn’t their way, and, when somebody starts trying to tell them how to run their club, they can as stubborn as a two-year-old at bedtime.
So Burk’s handicap in this match-play tournament is about 280, that being the approximate number of number of Augusta members — out of a total membership of about 300 — who think Burk is barking up the wrong azalea in attempting to force them to admit a woman.
That’s a number that has been generally overlooked in the debate. Much is made of the 20 or so members who are openly agitating for the club to admit women. Little is made of the 280 who aren’t going to let anyone tell them what to do.
Some of the agitators, including Lloyd Ward, the head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, have their own images at stake. Ward, for example, is feeling the heat from USOC members who point out that their organization is militant about wiping out discrimination of all kinds, including sexism, and it doesn’t look very good when the head of the whole shebang — who happens to be a minority himself by virtue of his African ancestry — ups and joins a good-old-boys club.
But the average age of Augusta National’s members is 71 and their average net worth is, in technical terms, bazillions. Many of them are retired, have nothing at stake, and don’t give a Hootie what Burk or anyone else, up to and including the Pope and the Dalai Lama, think. In fact, some of them are so amused by Burk’s distemper, they’re probably more inclined to hold the line, just to watch her sputter and fume. As to dissident members, they’re welcome to leave and find another club to belong to, if they feel that strongly about it. There are more than enough names on the Augusta National waiting list to replace them and scores more like them.

But Burk, who suddenly discovered that going after Augusta National is a wonderful way to harvest publicity for her organization, which isn’t exactly in the news every day, isn’t easily discouraged. She first attempted to go after the sponsors of the Masters broadcast. Johnson casually drawled, “We don’t need no stinkin’ sponsors,” and blithely announced that next year’s broadcast would be free of commercial interruption, and that Augusta National would dig into the cookie jar and pay CBS for the lost ads and toss in a little extra for production costs.
So she went after Woods, saying that, as the emperor of golf and as a minority himself, he should speak out about this grave social injustice. Woods initially said it wasn’t his problem and that private clubs such as Augusta have the right to choose their members whether he approved of those policies — he doesn’t — or not. Later, he expanded on that to say that Augusta should have a female member, but, again, it’s the members’ decision, not his. Most recently, he opined that Johnson and Augusta would “do the right thing,” adding that it is unfortunate that a private club has to be forced to do something that it will do anyway in its own sweet time.
Clearly, Burk is not making the progress she would like. So, while Woods is sort of coming around on the issue, she has turned to attempting to pressure the PGA Tour to drop the Masters as an official event unless Augusta admits a female. Since the Masters is a major tournament and is the most-watched golfing event on the planet, there is as much chance of that happening as there is of a convenient lightning bolt smiting Burk, Johnson, and Augusta National itself so that we can forget the whole thing and move on to other issues of grave national importance, such as whether we need strong national laws and penalties including, but not limited to, the death penalty for people who take 12 items through the 10-items-or-less checkout line.
Meanwhile, we all might be excused for wondering if any of this actually means anything. No matter who becomes a member of Augusta National, the club will continue to discriminate against nearly every person in the country who isn’t filthy rich and suitably low-key to be a member. Admitting one woman means nothing to most women, anymore than admitting one black — or one Croatian, for that matter — means anything to most blacks and Croatians. Whether one of our own is a member or not, the odds are excellent that we will never be ourselves.
And we might also wonder if one female member will be enough for Burk. If it is, then all she’s after is publicity for her organization. If not, hang on to your seats, because the next communiqué from Burk will be a demand that Augusta’s membership reflect society and be 53 percent female, and that Title IX be expanded to include private clubs.