Golf: Battle of iron wills at Augusta

By RUPERT CORNWELL

This may be professional golf's off-season, but not at Augusta National.

The club in Georgia that vies with St Andrews to be the spiritual home of the sport is engulfed in a uniquely American controversy over its refusal to admit women members.

And if Augusta's chairman, William "Hootie" Johnson, has his way, club policy is not going to change anytime soon.

The classic case of irresistible force versus immovable object offers a perfect mix of ingredients: political correctness, the battle of the sexes and that other ancient struggle between a "progressive" liberal north-east and a prickly conservative South, which hates nothing more than outsiders who tell it what to do.

Finally, there is the small matter of the Augusta Masters, arguably the most famous, and certainly the most beautiful golf tournament in the world, played in the second week of April each year.

But if the present impasse continues, the hallmark of next year's Masters might not be mint juleps, gorgeous dogwoods and azaleas, and the winner's green jacket, but a vulgar old picket line.

The trouble started when Martha Burk, head of the six-million-member National Council of Women's Organisations, decided enough was enough: Augusta's refusal of female members was symbolic of glass ceilings, unequal opportunities and "all the reasons women are running second in America."

She began to lobby Augusta's 300 members for change. But Johnson was unmoved. One day perhaps, women might be allowed to join, "but not at the point of a bayonet."

Thus far, the saga demonstrates the power of the Augusta National and Johnson.

Commercial sponsors are normally a financial lifeblood of American sport. But to avoid being pressured by the Masters' sponsors (who include Coca-Cola), he has simply dropped them.

Nor is CBS, the network that has covered the Masters since 1956, going to dig in its heels and risk losing rights to the event that is the jewel in its crown.

Augusta even insists on the right to veto commentators, as Gary McCord found when the club banned him for saying on-air that the fast greens looked as if they had been "smoothed with bikini wax."

Burk has had limited success in lobbying Augusta's members, who include some of America's top executives. A few have come out in favour of women. But most, in keeping with Augusta's iron rules, are keeping mum.

Last week the northern liberals wheeled out the mighty gun of an editorial in the New York Times. Yes, a private club had the right to choose its own, the Times said. But it called on world No 1 Tiger Woods to shun the event over what it called "brazen discrimination."

Now that would be something: a boycott by the reigning and three-times Masters champion. But it will not happen; the green jacket's lure is too strong. An unhappy Woods (himself a mere honorary member) said "there was not much he could do about it."

The real winner is the couch potato golf fan. To minimise the potential for financial pressure, Johnson has ordered the Masters be televised without commercials. This invites a feat as peculiar as the row itself: a potential ratings-topping programme that will lose money.

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