"Augusta National Adds First Two Female Members"

From The New York Times

Review by Jacob Harris in SRM 334

Augusta National Golf Club is one of the most historic golf courses and is currently the only home to the most popular major in golf, The Masters. A lot of sports fans didn’t realize exactly how huge of an event occurred in the golfing and sporting world this past fall with the first two women to ever become members of this prestigious club. With a lot of scrutiny and controversy over the pasted 80 years, the moment finally came with the introduction of Condolezza Rice and Darla Moore as the first and only two members of Augusta National at this point in time.

This past spring through fall wasn’t the first time that these issues and discussion have come up. It wasn’t till 1990 and after the club was almost 60 years old until the first African American gained membership. Martha Burk also fought hard and led a campaign to gain women membership in 2002. At that time the Augusta chairman, William Johnson, said that maybe one day the club might invite a female to join, but seeing that they are a private club, they can go about business the way they please. To gain membership into Augusta, one has to be invited by a small committee, there is no such thing as applying for membership like other golf courses. The spot of chairman changed hands in 2006 and talks began to stir up again this past spring. Finally the announcement came in August that the club hit a new milestone with its new female memberships.

As far as the media, this was nationally covered and it was a big deal to the public relations team at Augusta. Their beloved tournament was coming up when these talks began to arise and questions were starting to be asked. They also had to develop a plan on how to keep things calm because as mentioned before they are a private club and do things their own way, which didn’t really please the media. Instead of getting answers, the media got a lot of “no comment” responses which usually frustrates most fans and the media. Everything did end up turning out well and Augusta National even issued a news release for the announcement of the women members which is not something they usually do. Augusta is a very private club and is all about doing business their own way, but with this new addition, they may be opening up to the media more often. ---

Review by Ryan Dunn in SRM 334
Augusta National Country Club is well known for its privacy as well as its all-male membership. But as of August 2012 Augusta National has agreed to allow two women to join the club. Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore were formally invited to become members and will be the first two female members of this historic golf club. 

Augusta National is well known as the host of The Masters golf tournament. It is an 80 year old club. Augusta added its first African American member in 1990. The membership to Augusta is closed meaning a person cannot apply for membership but has to be invited by a membership committee to join. They have had many prevalent members including former president Dwight Eisenhower.

The decision to add women members was one that many people had been waiting for, for a long time. In 2002, Martha Burke started a campaign in which she tried to convince Augusta National to add women members to its role. It took 10 more years for it to happen. Nancy Lopez who is in golfs Hall of Fame was quoted saying “This is a big steppingstone for women in golf and for women in general because of what Augusta stands for.” Ms. Lopez was right.

Augusta has always gone about their business by their own accord and this situation was no different. Augusta National has been publicly scrutinized by the media as well as such figures as President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. This did not make Augusta cave though as they waited until for a time when no one expected it to happen to announce the invitation to both Rice and Moore.

The media jumped all over this story when it came out. It seemed that every news station across the nation had a story about this. The question of when Augusta National would invite a woman to join was one that no one knew the answer to. So when Augusta decided to invite two it became national news and everyone jumped on it.