Talk Story
Tempest in a sand trap:
Men-only private clubsONE OF MY golfing friends watched local phenom, Michelle Wie, practice hitting drives over the creek that divides the third fairway at Olomana Golf Course.
From the men's blue tees, a shot has to carry about 210 yards. From the unused back tee, where 13-year-old Michelle was hitting ball after ball into the twilight, a drive must fly more than 230 yards to stay dry.
Occasionally, one of Michelle's shots would splash in the creek, land short or miss the fairway, but you don't win championships and get invitations to play in LPGA tour events with mediocre tee shots. Shot after shot flew long, straight and true across the water.
"Her game's OK," my friend conceded, "but I'm sick of the hype." Michelle, an eighth grader at Punahou School, won the Jenny K. Wilson Invitational, the most prestigious women's golf tournament in Hawaii, when she was 11. Her ambition isn't limited to beating women.
"What ticks me off is all that talk of her playing in the U.S. Men's Amateur or the Masters," he said. "Why should women get to play in a men's golf tournament? If they let women play, why shouldn't I be able to play in the Jenny K.?"
Don't get him started on the issue of opening up Augusta National Golf Club to women members.
HOOTIE Johnson is back in the news this week, defending the men-only membership policy at Augusta, host of the Masters Golf Tournament, arguably the world's most prestigious golf event.
You'll remember that Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations accused the club of discriminating against women. Subsequently, Burk's organization pressured sponsors of the Masters telecast.
Johnson replied that the club wouldn't change its admissions policy at the point of a bayonet and that the Masters would be aired next year without sponsors.
Recently, he told Sports Illustrated, "You may wonder ... about the burden that's going to put on us, with doing away with our sponsors. It's something that we can handle, and it's something we can handle indefinitely. But I really think that we'll have sponsors again, maybe in 2004."
SO, AUGUSTA has the resources to weather the storm, but NCWO's challenge is likely to hurt the beneficiaries of the Masters. The pinch has to be felt somewhere.
As Johnson wrote in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, "Over the past five years, the Masters has contributed over $15.5 million to charity, $3.3 million in 2002 alone."
What's at stake is the right of Americans to free association. It's in the First Amendment of the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble...."
A poll commissioned by Augusta National asked a nationwide sample of 800 Americans last week if they agreed that "a private club or organization has the right to accept whoever it wants as a member, as long as it is not receiving any type of government funding or tax-payer money."
According to the poll, released yesterday, 88 percent of men and 83 percent of women agree with that statement.
As Johnson puts it, "I see gender and race as being totally different. I don't think you'll find a constitutional lawyer or a civil-rights activist who would equate the two."
When I asked members of the Hawaii Commission on the Status of Women recently if they thought Burk's Augusta National challenge helped or hurt the struggle for female equality, they unanimously agreed it did by publicizing the issue and making people think.
OK, we've thought about it. Now, let's get over it.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.