Augusta National Golf Club's Ban On Women Hits A Corporate Sponsorship Snag

I don't watch a lot of golf because as near as I can tell I'm not immortal and thus can't be wasting the finite amount of time I have on this earth watching it. But I'm at least aware of the fact that the Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters, has historically barred women from becoming members and that an activist named Martha Burk has long waged an campaign to change that policy.

Burk's efforts have thus far proven fruitless, but over at ThinkProgress, Travis Waldron reports that as a result of a collision of another Augusta tradition, a change may finally come. Or not! We'll see.

Everything basically hangs on how much fealty the golf club is willing to show to its historic corporate sponsors. See, one of the Masters' longtime sponsors is IBM. And the golf club has honored that company's CEO -- along with the CEOs of Exxon Mobil and AT&T -- with the symbolic trappings of membership. But here's the tricky part: The new CEO of IBM is Ginni Rometty, currently ranked No. 7 on Fortune magazine's list of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business."

It says a lot about how casual one can be about the lack of concern that there is insufficient gender equity at the executive level in corporate America that the Augusta National Golf Club managed to make it all the way to the 21st century with the rest of us without foreseeing this eventuality. Waldron gets to the heart of the matter:

Rometty’s situation, though, gives her leverage Burk never had. The CEOs of the other two Masters sponsors, Exxon Mobil and AT&T, are both members, and they’ll both be donning the club’s signature green jackets next week. If Rometty isn’t allowed to join them (and given Augusta’s history, she probably won’t be), it will send another message to the 6 million American women who play golf and countless others who watch it that even if they are capable of breaking every last one of corporate America’s glass ceilings, they aren’t capable of playing golf with the boys.

It would be nice if Waldron's pessimism ends up going unrequited by the golf club, and it takes this brave step into the present. But even if the club doesn't, it's still a net good that its prejudices are going to end up in the crosshairs.

Nevertheless, this is still a dispiriting reminder that far too often, you don't get justice until an injustice crosses up some staggeringly wealthy person. (See also: marriage equality in New York.) Speaking of this, maybe historic hoodie-wearer Mark Zuckerberg could help America resolve some issues right about now?

READ THE WHOLE THING:
How IBM Could Force an End to One 'Tradition Unlike Any Other' at This Year’s Masters: Gender Bias [ThinkProgress]
Golf’s Masters Facing Male-Only Dilemma With New IBM CEO [Bloomberg News]

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Comments

[alice sophia]

12:15 PM on 04/07/2012

Well, if we can't play, then we won't pay. Cf.: Rush loses sponsers, Coca-Cola and Kraft pull from SYG groups-----new day out there. That old truism: Money talks and Bulls*t walks!

[Dayvid Franke]

09:23 PM on 04/05/2012

It´s amazing how women never complain about having women only gyms, but want membership other places that are closed to men. I say tell the women to go pound sand until the double standards are eliminated. If women deserve a place away from men, men deserve a place away from women.

[Elle Shepard]

11:59 AM on 04/10/2012

Don't be absurd, this is a golf club.. women play golf - usually fully clothed - they don't need a separate golf court. The spaces women ask for "away from men" generally have a specific reason... but I haven't seen any gyms that are specifically separate with men and women - only the bathrooms and dressing room... maybe they have hours only for men and women.. so what...

Men have ALWAYS had places "away " from women ( and personally, I have always wondered why?) I don't mind the traditional mens clubs for the rich where they simply sit around, drink, tell each other fishing stories and read the newspapers - Women wouldn't waste their time with that kind of knuckle dragging rubbish anyway, but sports clubs with memberships - I don't see the point - Women play sports, women Like sports... Is this just so you guys can just slap each others behinds and not feel guilty about it?

[iwisweb]

12:44 PM on 04/05/2012

I'd like to know why HuffPost doesn't do a story on the recent job killing that's going on inside IBM US? You care more about whether IBM CEO Ginny Rometty gets in a men's golf club? Seriously? Really? Are you aware that IBM has a "plan" in place called 'Roadmap 2015'? The employees of IBM US are calling it "Roadkill 2015". In the first leg of this plan, 2500+ US IBMers lost their jobs to offshoring on 02.27.2012. IBM India is increasing their employee population. The US IBM population was about 134,000 employees in 2005. After this latest job killing, the number is about 95,000. IBM India's employee population is over 140,000. This Road Map 2015 'plan' will continue to fire thousands of US IBMers and offshore those jobs. The expectation is another 2500 around June 2012 or before. Will HuffPost do a story about that then? Why wait, eh? I'd bet a year's salary that IBM will fire another 2500 by June and Huffpost will ignore it...unless Ginny gets her "Green Jacket"....then it'll be BIG NEWS at the Huffington Post!

[IndependentAndProud]

01:46 AM on 04/04/2012

Locally, there is a gym that unashamedly calls itself "Women Only Health Club Spa" and nobody (meaning men) complains. I will be you dollars to donuts that if there were a gym called "Men Only Health Club Spa" there would be a big stink.

Double standard.

[Dayvid Franke]

09:25 PM on 04/05/2012

Damnright. Screw what Obama says to buy the way. He doesn´t care about anything except getting elected back to office. Great point.

[Elle Shepard]

12:00 PM on 04/10/2012

Give them time... Men can't leave anything alone.

[soblue]

08:28 AM on 04/02/2012

When will the Huff cover IBM's wholesale export of jobs and reputation to keep the stock price propped up? That policy is, if anything, accelerating under Ginny. She doesn't deserve much sympathy.

[db71]

04:16 PM on 04/08/2012

IBM missed the move to minicomputers almost 30 years ago and has been on its death bed since. They sold mainframes for as long as they could BS business into buying them, then decided that consulting and outsourcing were the way to go. None have proved real successful, so getting their CEO into Augusta probably isn't a big deal to them. By the way, she plays very little golf, and might not even accept the membership if it were offered.

[bentoverbyBlew]

05:27 PM on 03/30/2012

When Ginni gets her "Green Jacket" - let her tell you about the "2015 Roadkill" initiative, which is IBM's grand plan to "globally resource" (another fancy-dancy IBM term for offshoring work) the American worker, while ripping off their customers, who are paying top dollar, for low quality inferior IT Service Delivery, from the BRICs.

IBM is built on a house of cards, and run by a bunch of penny-pinchers, who have artificially inflated the stock, at the expense of the US worker. Sammy, Ginny, and Warren will undoubtedly have inside information and cash out long before the stock crashes.

The remaining US workers, if there are any left in 2015 will get to enjoy their 5 whole shares of vested IBM Stock that were issued in 2011. Can't wait. It's going to be a helluva pizza party!

[msmxx]

03:00 PM on 03/30/2012

I would rather see an article on how Ginny is currently offshoring and plans to offshore 1/2 of the IBM jobs left in the U.S. by 2015.

[schnauzergirl]

01:22 PM on 03/30/2012

I wonder how the boards of these companies can justfy being sponsor since they all have non-descrimination policies that they follow and hold their contractors and suppliers to.

[db71]

04:18 PM on 04/08/2012

Because Augusta National is a private club? It doesn't accept government money and can't be told who must be accepted for membership.

[Elle Shepard]

12:00 PM on 04/10/2012

Dandy , but lame reason.

[phal4875]

12:47 PM on 03/30/2012

I suppose that Augusta is doing something that is legal, but why would it keep this archaic rule in place? Women play golf; they even vote and own property. Many are not barefoot and pregnant. What does Augusta National gain by keeping just over half of all Americans away from their precious piece of sod? They should move into the twentieth century, if not the twenty-first.

[db71]

04:19 PM on 04/08/2012

They keep me away too, and I'm male. They only have 300 members, so that leaves most of us out.

[rugbymom]

12:41 PM on 03/30/2012

Reminds me of the time when UN Ambassador Andrew Young made an official visit to South Africa, during apartheid. As I recall, since they couldn't require a US diplomat to ride in the "black" carriages in trains and use the third-class washroom (without creating an international incident), they issued him an ID card saying "honorary white." Maybe Augusta will give Ms. Rometty a "temporary honorary member" card.

[professoramy]

01:25 PM on 03/30/2012

But would that make her an 'honorary man'????

[SoutheastBeast]

12:25 PM on 03/30/2012

Usually the color green trumps bigotry. I have to say I'd be surprised if Augusta National bites the hand that feeds them.

[db71]

04:23 PM on 04/08/2012

When Martha Burk started this campaign in 2002, Augusta National simply dropped their sponsors for a year to prevent them from being subjected to the controversy. They don't need the money. What suffers are the charities that typically get the net proceeds of the Masters.

[La Elle]

11:36 AM on 03/30/2012

Welcome to Disgusta, Georgia. Where the women are chained to the stove and left barefoot and pregnant, or heavily made up with bottle blonde hair, firmly lodged on the arm of a pasty old white man as his trophy wife.

The board members of the Augusta National are deeply entrenched in almost every major business in Augusta. They are the good old boys whose family owns the Augusta Chronicle the local paper that is one of the most biased and hateful publications I have ever read. All you have to do is read the back issues of the editorial section and opinions of the editor to see how nasty they are.

Unless you are white, male, and wealthy, you do NOT want to come to this town. As the song goes, Augusta, Georgia is just no place to be.

[Elle Shepard]

12:04 PM on 04/10/2012

OMG!!!! I live here and I have been waiting for this for YEARS>>> someone who does not worship Augusta, the people or the stupid Masters golf hole... You have nailed this my friend... Kudo's!!! I've lived all over the world... this place is a freakin' pimple. F & F'd for this!

[La Elle]

09:47 PM on 04/12/2012

We need to have coffee...Here I thought I was the lone Dissenter!

[Phillip Hyper]

11:23 AM on 03/30/2012

The good ol' boys sure do like them purty azeleas though . . .

[phal4875]

12:49 PM on 03/30/2012

Them's beeutifull.

[Djay0252]

11:11 AM on 03/30/2012

Must be a Republican golf course!

[La Elle]

11:18 AM on 03/30/2012

BIG time.

[rockobuster]

11:22 AM on 03/30/2012

Funny but not true. Most are Southern (very rich) Democrats.

[Gwens]

12:31 PM on 03/30/2012

proof of that please

[giftsthatpurr]

08:03 PM on 03/30/2012

LOL sure they are.

[Phillip Hyper]

11:01 AM on 03/30/2012

Hey, Fuzzy wants to know if fried chicken and collard greens are on the Champions Dinner menu this year . . .

[phal4875]

12:52 PM on 03/30/2012

Zoeller is a man stuck in the '60s - the 1860s.