Skip to footer

Masters golf: 12 women candidates for Augusta National membership

The Augusta National Golf Club finds itself in a very awkward situation this week as it hosts the 76th Masters Tournament. The dilemma it faces stems from the club’s policy of accepting only men as members.

A move to end the policy was mounted in 2003 by the chairman of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, but the protest failed.  But now it appears that it may be harder than ever to keep women out, especially one woman: Virginia M. Romnetty, who was named the new chief executive officer of International Business Machines Corp. in October.

IBM is one of three major corporate sponsors of the Masters, and it’s been traditional for the men who run the sponsoring companies, including Exxon and AT&T, to be extended invitations to join Augusta National. And although Ms. Romnetty doesn’t play golf frequently, she does consider herself a golfer. 

Neither she nor the club, whose members include corporate titans such as Warren Buffett and T. Boone Pickens, has said much publicly about the newly percolating controversy. IBM, however, could face difficulty in explaining to customers how it can sponsor an event hosted by a club that won’t invite its CEO to join.

It’s conceivable that behind Augusta National’s tightly closed doors, a move is already in the works to usher Romnetty into the fold. Be that as it may, just adding one woman to the membership wouldn’t seem the proper way to open up this male bastion.

To do it right, wouldn’t it be better to add a group of women? Here are a dozen whose personal stature and golfing backgrounds make them logical candidates:

Brian Snyder/REUTERS
In this file photo, spectators walk past the main scoreboard during a practice round for the 2011 Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.

Hollis Stacy

  • By Ross Atkin Staff

Before joining the LPGA tour in 1974, the Savannah, Ga., native became the only player to ever win the US Junior Girls Championship three times, doing it consecutively, beginning in 1969.  Before that, however, her passion for the sport was fueled by attending the 1966 Masters in nearby Augusta. She collected many player autographs, including that of Ben Hogan, and says she still has the ticket stubs from the tournament. Now a Denver resident, she will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in May in St. Augustine, Fla. 

1 of 12
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.