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Aligned with Augusta
Women Masters fans side with Hootie over Burk
Posted: Thursday April 10, 2003 4:34 PM
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- She may never wear the green jacket of an
Augusta National Golf Club member, but Mary Boldig would still
rather stand at Amen Corner than in Martha Burk's corner.
Boldig, 49, came to the Masters by herself this year from
Tullahoma, Tenn., where she owns a printing business. She's an avid
golfer who's played courses in Scotland and Ireland -- at men-only
clubs, she notes.
Like nearly everyone attending the tournament, Boldig knows all
about Burk's crusade against Augusta National's all-male
membership. But she's not about to miss a chance to see Tiger Woods
win his third-straight Masters to picket a private club that admits
only the super elite.
"It's never a possibility I'd be a member. To be a member,
you've got to be somebody," Boldig said Thursday, when rain
postponed the Masters opening round. "What's sad now is, whenever
they do get a woman member, she's going to think, `I'm just a
token.'"
The club's members may all be men, but the Masters is definitely
a coed affair. And there's no sign that women are boycotting
because of Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's
Organizations.
Women are all over the course this week, some tagging along with
husbands, others joining friends for an all-girls golf week.
They're applauding players from the galleries and spending hefty
sums in the pro shop.
"If I can have my little ticket and they'll let me come and
watch and buy, I'm happy," said Linda Spradley of Augusta who
dropped $500 on an official Masters watch, charm and sweaters --
some for her husband but "mostly for me."
T-shirts, caps and buttons with slogans bashing Burk or
ballyhooing Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson have also been
a hit with women fans.
Blake Roberts, a vendor selling souvenirs that mock Burk, said
he was nervous of how women might react when he set up his tent
outside Augusta National on Monday. "We were expecting a hornet's
nest," he said.
"It's amazing. We've probably had 50-percent women buying.
Women love the idea," said Roberts of Chattanooga, Tenn. "You'll
see a couple walking and the woman will go -- That's great! -- and
pull her husband in."
He'd just sold a $12 golf towel printed with "Nice Try Martha"
to a woman whose husband passed on buying an "I Support Hootie"
button at the tent next door.
Many women passing through the Augusta National gates declined
to speak with a reporter other than to say they support the club's
right to have only men as members.
None said they support Burk, who plans to bring in about 200
protesters Saturday.
"I'm not concerned about it," said Charlotte Knipling, an
office manager from Fairfax, Va., who said Augusta National should
be no more obligated to admit women than the Boy Scouts. "We've
got the war in Iraq and other things to think about. [Burk] has got
her own private vendetta."
Knipling's not a golfer, but her friend Robbye Unger is. The two
women left their families at home to attend the tournament.
"I'd love to play it," Unger, a retired teacher, said of
Augusta National. "If they gave me a free membership, I might take
it. But in our country we have the right of private association."
Women are allowed to play at Augusta National as guests of its
male members. But all things aren't equal for women allowed inside
the wrought iron gates.
A woman ticket holder trying to walk through the club's Grill
Room restaurant Thursday was stopped by a security guard, who
sheepishly explained the eatery is for "gentlemen only." She
turned away without arguing.
Tolerance for Augusta National's gender barriers is a "Southern
tradition" for Hanna Atkins, 21, who has attended the Masters with
her father since 1987.
The University of Georgia student said she can't get too angry
about Augusta National being all-male when her sorority only admits
women.
"I would want my husband to be a member and I would accompany
him to the club. But I wouldn't want to be a member myself,"
Atkins said. "That's the way it is in the South, and some people
in the North don't understand that."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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