Muirfield May Keep Women, & Therefore, The Open Out

Martin Dempster of The Scotsman reports that Muirfield officials are bracing for the worst as the ancient membership's Ancient wing is opposing efforts to move the club into the 21st century. With the vote results due any moment, the promise of future Open Championship's likely hangs in the balance.

Dempster writes of a letter, probably created on a typewriter, sent out before the "Electoral Reform Society" of the club would be tabulating ballots:

But the letter sent out by a 33-strong ‘no’ group is believed to have had a bigger impact on a postal vote that closes today than the club’s board had anticipated, leaving it anything but confident about securing sufficient support.

Sent to The Scotsman, the letter was issued by members who believe the proposal to admit women members “should not be approved at this time” and have urged fellow members to give the matter “very careful thought” before voting due to it being a “very major change and will involve inevitable risk”.

The letter states: “It is recognised that it is a very sensitive matter and the club is in a difficult position, but associations like ours with a very long and venerable history have strengths which are derived from that history.

Given that the two least progressive clubs on the planet--the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and Augusta National--have budged on this issue, the reaction has been unusually nasty.

Ewan Murray in The Guardian.

Even if the Muirfield postal vote is returned as positive for change, a section of the club has embarrassed itself. If it is negative, the club is obliged to do as its members choose; just as golf and the R&A must and surely will ignore Muirfield when it comes to major tournaments. To start with a position of no women members is bad enough, to endorse as much with a vote takes matters to a new level entirely.

Alistair Tait at Golfweek.com:

If the vote, indeed, is to be “no” on Thursday, the governing body should remove Muirfield (No. 4, Golfweek’s Best Great Britain and Ireland Classic Courses) from the Open rota. As a private members’ club, the Honourable Company is well within its rights to determine its own membership. However, as a body governing the game for men and women worldwide beyond the U.S. and Mexico, the R&A should not be taking its championships to clubs that discriminate on the basis of gender, no matter how good the course is.

As the above writers have noted, the club can do as it pleases but should not host The Open if enough members are this passionate about what is a completely trivial matter to most 21st century-acknowledging humans.

The good news is that the news reinforces what we all know: wonderful links, wonderful clubhouse, wonderful staff and mostly pitiful membership that somehow thinks it's "cool" to be miserable and rude.