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Augusta policies will remain same

Despite pressure, chairman Hootie Johnson says club will not admit woman member before Masters.

©Associated Press
November 12, 2002

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- A green jacket was draped over Hootie Johnson's shoulders and the hint of a smile played above his square jaw as he spoke. The Augusta National Golf Club chairman hardly looked like someone who felt threatened, even at the point of a bayonet.

As controversy over the all-male membership at the home of the Masters swirled well beyond its green gates, the 71-year-old was as defiant as ever.

The Masters will be played the second week in April, no matter what, he said, and there is no chance a woman will be a club member by then.

"We have no timetable on the woman member," Johnson said during an interview Nov. 4. "Our club has enjoyed a camaraderie and a closeness that's served us well for so long, that it makes it difficult ... to consider change.

"A woman may be a member of this club one day, but that is out in the future."

His comments were the first on the issue since he fueled the debate with a three-page statement that defended the club's right to privacy and criticized Martha Burk and the National Council of Women's Organizations for trying to coerce change.

He said in his July 9 letter that Augusta may some day have a woman member, "but not at the point of a bayonet," which has become a slogan of his resolve.

Johnson was as unyielding as ever, offering the kind of assurances usually reserved for death and taxes. "There will always be a Masters," he said. "We will prevail because we're right."

He was adamant that Augusta would not cave to anyone who challenges the constitutional rights of a private club to associate with whomever it wants.

"This woman portrays us as being discriminatory and being bigots. And we're not," Johnson said. "We're a private club. And private organizations are good. The Boy Scouts. The Girl Scouts. Junior League. Sororities. Fraternities. Are these immoral? See, we are in good company as a single-gender organization."

Burk doesn't buy Johnson's argument, and she speculated that he spoke out because, "He must be feeling additional pressure from inside the club, PGA Tour sponsors or the players."

He sees no connection between racial and gender discrimination. "Do you know of any constitutional lawyer that's ever said they were the same? Do you know any civil rights activists that said it was the same? It's not relevant," he said.

Burk doesn't buy Johnson's argument, and she speculated that he spoke out because, "He must be feeling additional pressure from inside the club, PGA Tour sponsors or the players."

"Hopefully, this is Hootie's last hurrah, and there still may be some pressure outside the club to make this change," she said.

Augusta opened in 1933. The Masters was created a year later and has evolved into the most famous of golf's majors, the only one played on the same course.

Augusta allows women to play without restrictions. Women played more than 1,000 rounds last year, and Johnson invited the University of South Carolina women's golf team as his guest. So, what's wrong with having one as a member?

"We just don't choose to do that at this time," he said.

Asked if he had any regrets about his response to Burk, Johnson smiled: "I seldom have any regrets. I don't look back much."

Then he turned serious and added: "I regret that she threatened us. And I regret that she threatened our sponsors."

Johnson dismissed the TV sponsors of the Masters -- Citigroup, Coca-Cola and IBM -- after Burk challenged them to live up to their policies against sex discrimination. It will be the first commercial-free sporting event on network TV.

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