NY Times Golf Reporter Does Not Want To Cover Masters Until They Admit A Female Member

Damon Hack with the report on golf.com that New York Times golf writer Karen Crouse does not want to come back to Augusta National until a woman is admitted as a member.

“If it were left to me, which it seldom is in the power structure of writer versus editor, I’d probably not come cover this event again until there is a woman member,” Crouse said Thursday. “More and more, the lack of a woman member is just a blue elephant in the room.”

A blue elephant? I would have gone with green, but...

Now, I actually found this suggestion ridiculous since Billy Payne's initial comments were 11 minutes long and it certainly was not another 20 until the question she references was asked. The event didn't even last that long!

Crouse, who became the Times’s golf writer in 2011, made the comments one day after Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne held a contentious press conference about Augusta National’s membership practices.

Crouse, sitting in the second row of that press conference, held her hand aloft for 20 minutes before the moderator called on her to speak.

Welcome to the club, Karen! I have found the club officials to be quite good at trying to track questions and get them in order. Today I was skipped over by accident by the same gentleman who Crouse is claiming to have been ignored by, but he made sure to get me in and I'm sure it was just an oversight in the midst of many hands in the air. These pressers are free-for-alls, awkward, tense and especially difficult when it's the Chairman. I highly, highly doubt she was being singled out.

Crouse also criticized the PGA Tour and Tim Finchem:

“I love the [Masters] tournament for the reasons the players do -- the course is beautiful, the history is abundant,” Crouse said. “But I find it harder and harder to get past one thing that’s missing. [PGA Tour commissioner] Tim Finchem is not making a stand. High-ranking players with daughters are not willing to talk about it. Somebody has to make a stand. Why not me in my own little way?”

You may recall that I recently took issue with Crouse's characterization of the Olympic design competition winner. In that case she singled out a woman who was a part of the design team as the architect.