An emotional Bubba Watson and his mother following his sudden-death play-off victory at the 2012 Masters
Augusta National Golf Club, host of The Masters golf championship, is once again in the cross-hairs of the politically-correct media and feminist radicals. This year, a truly classic finish and the subsequent crowning of an “All-American Boy” champion in the person of Bubba Watson was unfortunately muted by the sideshow of the never-ending question of if/when Augusta National will grant membership to the first female in its storied, 78-year history.
Allow me to remind you again that Augusta National is a private
establishment and need not amend its policies to any person or
group so long as the entity doesn’t break any laws, which it hasn’t. Why all the fuss and pressure for club chairman Billy Payne to add women to the membership? Are these PC-sensitive media dopes so lathered in their left-wing favoritism and latest “cause du jour” that they don’t recall the failed, colossal crash-and-burn attempt for the same cause ten years ago led by Martha Burk? Burk’s full-court press strategy aimed at then-club chairman Hootie Johnson included the successful pressuring of major sponsors and television broadcasters to boycott The Masters.
No problem. As a private club, Johnson and Augusta subsidized the event primarily through in-house funding sources, and The Masters went on with its usual glitz and success. Burke’s handful of on-site protesters who
originally picketed in front of the gates of Augusta National, were ordered off the private property by police and allowed to take their pathetic circus of characters to a nearby vacant lot, where they garnered little attention. It was also during this time that Hootie Johnson elicited this now epic explanation in response to the media’s incessant questions regarding the exclusivity rules of the club:
“Our membership is single gender just as many other
organizations and clubs all across America. These would include junior Leagues,sororities, fraternities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and countless others. And we all have a moral and legal right to organize our clubs the way we wish.”
Former Augusta National Chairman, Hootie Johnson
How can any true-blooded American argue against that statement, which is in essence a founding principle of our Constitution? In classic summary,
Johnson followed up with the position that Augusta would not be pressured or
bullied to change it’s policies “by point of bayonet.”
Give it a rest already! Augusta for decades refused membership and playing privileges to blacks. Eventually, and on their own accord, Augusta National invited Lee Elder, who in 1975 became the first such minority to play
in The Masters. Billy Payne and the Augusta National board will one day allow female membership. But so long as the lights, cameras, and
resentful rhetoric from self-centered attention-seekers continue their
in-your-face demands of this private club, the longer it will be until that day
finally arrives.