IT HAS been nine years since a rather futile protest brought the issue of Augusta National’s lack of female members to the fore, but this year it has risen again – in a much thornier form for the club that hosts the Masters.

In 2003, it was Martha Burk, then the head of the National Organization for Women, who decided to press the issue of Augusta’s all-male membership. But now it stems from IBM’s decision last year to name Virginia M Rometty as its chief executive.

Traditionally, IBM chief executives are invited to join Augusta, which is not a tradition that would get shoved aside lightly because IBM remains one of only three main sponsors of the Masters. However, Augusta has not only never had a female member but its former chairman, Hootie Johnson, famously responded to Burk’s challenge with his declaration that he wouldn’t be forced “at the point of a bayonet” to admit women.

That analogy suggested the era to which Johnson adhered. Now, current chairman Billy Payne, who took the job in 2006 promising to stick to Masters traditions, has to face the issue from a far more modern angle.

As Dan Wetzel wrote on Yahoo.com, sticking to the no-female-members tradition means excluding the head of its major corporate sponsor because she is a woman. And this means elevating sexual discrimination above other priorities, including being the club of the business elite.

Moreover, now the Rometty question has been posed rather widely the week before the Masters, Augusta will have to address it in public fashion. Initial attempts to elicit comments, including by Bloomberg News, were met with the usual replies that the club does not discuss membership issues.

Augusta sidestepped similar questions about racial discrimination by quietly admitting two black members in 1990, shortly after the discriminatory practices of PGA Tournament host Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Alabama, came to light and ended in the club agreeing to invite black members.

New York Times