 |
| |
|
 |
 |
||||||||||||
|
Martha's mistake Burk's downfall could be tying the war to Augusta crusadePosted: Thursday April 10, 2003 1:38 PM
Martha blew it. Plain and simple. She slammed a duck-hook off the 18th tee with the match all square. Missed a one-foot putt to win. Martha Burk commanded our attention for more than nine months leading up the grandest tournament in golf and, with one frivolous utterance, she lost us. Saturday, Burk will march and rail in Georgia, touting that the Augusta National Golf Club, host of the Masters, should drop its Neanderthal men-only policy and admit female members. She's right. But frankly, I just don't have the fire to raise a fist and say, "Right on, girl!" Not anymore. Not after Burk's recent remarks, describing CBS' airing of the tournament as "an insult" to the female soldiers who are putting their lives on the line for freedom in Iraq. How wrong it is, she inferred with disdain, that these brave women will return home to a nation where they ... uh ... What Martha? Can't get into a stodgy old private country club? Talk about an insult. Burk later claimed she was misunderstood and tried to recant. But no mulligans are allowed here. Her comment was an insult to generations of African-American soldiers who fought and died for their country at a time when they could not sit down and eat in public restaurants or use public restrooms or drink from a water fountain that wasn't located below a sign that read "colored." It was an insult to the black soldiers fighting in Iraq today who, when they come home, will stand a better chance of going to prison than to college. (The Justice Department reported earlier this month that 12 percent of African-American men between the ages of 20 and 34 are in jail or prison, compared with just 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group.)
Burk's remarks were indeed an insult to women solders fighting Iraq because they'll return to a place where they can't afford to join a stodgy, old golf club -- and probably never will because they'll earn about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns for doing the same job. Yes, Augusta National Golf Club is symbolic of many of society's lingering ills and inequities. But rather than take on Hootie and his homies in an effort to get Condoleezza Rice, Sandra Day O'Connor or maybe Billie Jean King (I'd pay to see the old codgers' faces at Augusta when they find out King's rounding out their foursome) admitted as a member to Augusta National, Burk could have made a bigger point by using the soap opera twists and turns of debate to shed light on some of the more vital battles waged by the National Council of Women's Organization, which she chairs. In truth, Martha actually blew it last July when she let PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem slide after he did the hokey-pokey by saying Augusta National's membership policy was "not for [the PGA Tour] to be concerned about" because the governing body had "no contractual obligation" with the club. And I'm Bobo the Clown. What about the tour's business obligation with Augusta National? There may not be any paperwork linking the Tour and the club, but the Tour is just as culpable in enabling discrimination in this instance as it was in 1991 when a gentleman by the name of Hall Thompson, president of the Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., said in 1990 that his all-white club, which was just weeks from hosting the PGA Championship, would not be pressured into accepting blacks as members. "The country club is our home and we pick and choose who we want," he said then. Thompson's comments ignited a firestorm that ultimately forced the PGA Tour, the PGA of America, the LPGA and U.S. Golf Association to require any club that hosted an event to adopt non-discriminatory admission policies and prove that membership was inclusive. Suddenly blacks throughout the nation were being invited to join private golf clubs (including, in the interest of disclosure, your truly). And while admittedly only a miniscule percentage of blacks were able to become members of these pricey and exclusive enclaves, the issue of racial discrimination is no longer a hot-button topic for the PGA Tour or, more important , for the myriad corporate sponsors (many of which were publicly traded) that were threatened with being targeted for enabling and funding such policies. Credit, in part, a gentleman you've probably never heard of -- much like you didn't know Martha before last summer. He's Rev. Abraham Woods. Back in 1990, he was president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights organization. When he read Hall's comments he saw a great opportunity to crush one of the city's last bastions of Jim Crow. "The time to scald a hog is when the water's hot," Rev Woods said at the time. "And I knew the water was hot." Within days, a Birmingham city council member was objecting to the city's use of funds for the tournament because of the club's lack of black members. Just days before the PGA teed off, Shoal Creek admitted an African American as an "honorary member" -- meaning, he did not have to write a check -- and averted a major protest by the SCLC. Soon thereafter, the PGA Tour's new policy was affecting change throughout the U.S. If 10 years from now, golf has largely forgotten Martha Burk, it won't be because her mission wasn't just. It'll be -- plain and simple -- because she let the water get cold. Roy S. Johnson is an assistant managing editor for Sports Illustrated. His "Pass the Word" column appears on SI.com every Friday. Catch Johnson on CNN Headline news every Thursday at 3:40 p.m. ET.
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
