Philip Reid on the background to the dispute that is overshadowing this week's Masters at Augusta.

On Sunday evening, driving down Washington Road where Augusta National Golf Club is hidden away behind an evergreen curtain of towering magnolias and pine trees, with barely a car on the road and the gates to the course closed, it was a case of the calm before the imperfect storm. Not the meteorological collision of weather fronts which afflicted early arrivals to the course for yesterday's first scheduled practice round of the US Masters, rather a politically correct one that, in truth, has no real winner in sight.

William "Hootie" Johnson, the chairman of Augusta National, and Martha Burk, the chairwoman of the (American) National Council of Women's Organisations, are on a collision course this week, just as they have been for much of the past year. Burk has been raking her fingernails on the small "Gentlemen Only" brass plates that decorate the clubhouse doors, and the sound has travelled further than she could ever have expected.

Let's move back in time a little, to last summer. Burk didn't know anything about golf, much less the place that the Masters has in the hearts, minds and souls of all golfers, when she read an article in USA Today where it was revealed to her that women were not allowed to join Augusta National as members. "My thought process was, 'it looks like something is possible here'," recalled Burk.

The NCWO doesn't actually have any individual members of its own, rather it is an umbrella group composed of 170 organisations in the United States. It was created about 20 years ago in response to the election of Ronald Reagan as US president, perceived as a setback to the feminist movement. Its home is on the 10th floor of an office block in Washington, and there are two paid employees plus Burk who is not paid.

On June 12th last, Burk wrote her letter to Johnson.

It was a private letter, and she didn't expect it to get into the public domain. On poor advice, however, Johnson went public on the matter and his well-documented "point of a bayonet" response blew the whole controversy open.

The current debate, though, hardly marks the first time that Augusta National and the outside world have collided. Two major instances occurred over racial issues, first with a call for black golfers to be invited to play in the championship in the 1960s and 1970s, then to be invited to become members in 1990.

When Charlie Sifford won a US Tour event in 1967, but wasn't invited to play in the Masters the following year, the public outcry grew. Jim Murray, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote, "the Masters is as white as the Ku Klux Klan". But it was not to be until 1975 that Lee Elder, winner of a qualifying US Tour event the previous year, broke the colour barrier.

In 1990, urged on by relatively progressive members, including Johnson, the then chairman Hord Hardin invited Ron Townsend to become the club's first black member. "It was the right thing to do," insisted Johnson.

Ironically, given the stance he has taken on the gender issue, Johnson's history is more liberal than conservative.

A former banker, his bank loaned money to African-Americans when other banks refused.

He called for the Confederate flag to come down from the South Carolina statehouse dome.

He worked in the 1960s to desegregate South Carolina universities.

In 1970, he campaigned for black political candidates and helped elect three black members to the state legislature.

He was one of those who urged the University of South Carolina to name its business school after Darla Moore, the first business school in the US to be named after a woman.

Augusta National annually gives $3 million to charitable causes.

Those who know Johnson say that he would probably have been the one to make moves to admitting women members, but in his own time. The letter from Burk, though, "set him off," according to Leevy Johnson, a black lawyer Johnson helped get elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1970. "You can't intimidate Hootie, but you can rile him. Ms Burk has clearly done that, and Hootie can be very stubborn," he said.

Johnson is used to giving orders, not taking them. He turned his father's bank State Ban & Trust into Bankers Trust and that bank later merged into NationsBank which later became Bank of America, the largest in the United States. A millionaire several times over, Johnson became a member in 1968, receiving a letter of invitation from none other than Bobby Jones himself.

In one of his few public utterances on the gender issue, Johnson remarked, "I see gender and race as being totally different . . . you won't find a constitutional lawyer or a civil rights activist who would equate the two." In Burk, however, he has come up against an equally stubborn individual. Two days ago, an anti-Martha Burk protest was held in Augusta - organised by local women - to show their support for the club. Seventy five women turned up. Next Saturday, however, Burk will lead her supporters to a car park close to Augusta National and make her protest against the fact that there is no woman member in the club.

Most players who will tee it up this week in quest of a green jacket have been slow to come out on Burk's side, however. "I think there are really bigger and better issues out there concerning women than getting a membership at Augusta that she should be focusing on," said Vijay Singh. "I'm just saddened that it has come to this. What is it going to do if they do have a woman member? It's not going to make any difference."

Nick Faldo, a three-time Masters champion, remarked: "With all that's going on in the world, it is good that they care about something . . but I hope they're only spending five per cent of their time on it. There are far more important issues in the world right now. This one's not a big one." There is a belief that, in time, and on Augusta National's slow timescale, that a woman member will be admitted. Tiger Woods, the world's number one, who is chasing an unprecedented third successive Masters title, didn't take the advice of a New York Times editorial to boycott the tournament, but did say recently that the Masters would be more than just a golf tournament this year. "It has brought about more of an awareness that wasn't there before. I think that's the important thing about it - that we are all aware that it still happens in our sport, and trying to rectify that doesn't happen overnight," said Woods.

Mark O'Meara remarked: "Originally, my feeling was it is a private club and they should be able to do whatever they want. But because they do have the Masters there . . . . maybe they should have a female member in there."

And, of course, it will happen. It's believed that the club had already started down that path behind closed doors before this all became a public issue, and that the NCWO only served to rile members with their demands. So be it, it is felt that a woman will be invited to join some time this year, or next. One thing is for sure, and that is that the invite, when it comes, won't be going to Burk.