Scorecard

Where the Boys Are

Augusta National has dug in its heels and opened its wallet in a battle to keep women out of the club. Can the Masters go on as usual?

For many golf fans, watching the Masters on TV is like dreaming in green. Next April it will only be better. Instead of four minutes of commercials per hour, there will be no ads at all. The first major of the year will still be on CBS, just as it has been since 1956. It will just seem like PBS. Or heaven.

There is nothing serene, however, about what's going on behind the sponsor-free Masters, though matters started out genteelly enough in June. That's when Hootie Johnson, chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, received a brief, polite letter from Martha Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations. Burk asked Johnson to "review your policies and practices ... and open your membership to women now, so that this is not an issue when the tournament is staged next year."

Women seem to have a powerful effect on the 71-year-old retired South Carolina banker who runs Augusta National. Burk's measured request got Hootie all hot and haughty. Perhaps it brought him back to the highly annoying year of 1990, when public pressure forced the club to admit its first black member. In his mind it also raised the possibility of boycotts of the tournament's sponsors and picketers at his gates. Johnson went public, issuing a statement saying that change at his club will not come "at the point of a bayonet." Last Friday he cut loose the three sponsors of the Masters broadcast -- Coca-Cola, Citigroup and IBM -- rather than force them to face the wrath of the feminists whom he intends to fight till. ...

Wait a minute: How does Hootie think this is going to turn out, anyway? On his side he has the dwindling herd of club folk, who like to point out that they have the legal right to exclude anyone they want. The viewing public may still tune in the tournament, but not because they actively support Hootie's position. They just want to see one of the finest tournaments in golf, famous golfers and all those lovely azaleas.

Arrayed against Johnson are Burk, her millions of constituents and, despite the lack of open animosity, CBS. A network spokesman told SI on Monday, "CBS will broadcast the Masters next April" and declined further comment. Even though Augusta will pay millions that the sponsors were set to shell out, Johnson is putting the network in an embarrassing position. Rest assured, CBS will not go on indefinitely presenting a two-day, 7 1/2-hour infomercial for the Good Ol' Boy Way.

Hootie also could come under pressure from his own influential pals -- for example, Warren Buffett, a board member of Coca-Cola, and Sandy Weill, chairman of Citigroup, are Augusta members. These men are not the type to sit quietly by while Hootie turns a golfer's paradise into a hotbed of controversy. The view from here is that this problem won't last much longer; it's too easy to solve. Simply let that first woman slip on a green jacket. It won't be a great moment in fashion, but it will be a fine day for golf.

Issue date: September 9, 2002

For more Scorecard see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, September 4. Click here to subscribe to SI.

 

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