Still turning their backs

Portmarnock Golf Club, host of next month's Irish Open, has no women members. What is it scared of, asks Kathy Sheridan

I still get nightmares about that picture of American Ryder Cup wives on a golf course somewhere. The rows of blondes poured into identical whitish skirt suits, acres of thigh flashing above tottering white high heels, fuelling the wet dreams of every V-necked, pot-bellied, G&T-swigging golf-club bore in the universe. Those women know their place.

The eerie spectacle clearly jogged a movie memory: The Stepford Wives is being remade this year. That it remains relevant says as much about women as men, sadly. Sad but hysterical. For where would we be without the golfing boyos to entertain us? I can't get enough of those stories about the lengths to which ageing males with the style and charisma of fungoid toenails will go to to keep blacks and women out of their clubs. You have to wonder what goes on in those places that makes them so fearful of being observed by the non-Pringle-wearing, non-penis-possessing classes.

Vivien Saunders, a former British women's golf champion, gained a small insight when she heard a senior PGA official embellish his after-dinner speech with the quip that "solicitor" is an anagram for a part of the female anatomy. (He couldn't spell, either.)

We're not dealing with geniuses here. There is no point appealing to their intellect. These are the kind of people who sent a finger-wagging letter to a woman who dared to enter the premises after her husband had a heart attack on the golf course.

I still get flashbacks to last August, when Dubya appeared on a golf course and, standing on the tee in his golf shirt, club in hand, delivered a message to the world about the threat from Iraq: "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive."

The great John Peel summed it up: "Whenever friends say they've taken up golf, I tend to cross them off mentally. It just seems like an antechamber to death." I can conceive of nothing more narcoleptic than getting into bed, so to speak, with their tedious ilk. Nor can any normal woman I know. Most women have neither the time nor the stomach to play those interminable holes while dying a slow death listening to bilge about bending the elbow at the 19th or Monty's tendency to tilt what becomes a reverse pivot. (No, I don't know what it means.)

And yet that puffed-up-smug-as-a- frog look golfers routinely assume suggests this territoriality over golf clubs isn't just about the right to bend the elbow over adolescent smut in all-male company. Ever leafed through Who's Who In Ireland and wondered why almost every alpha male lists golf as his hobby? It's because he learned on Daddy's knee that there is no professional lubricant to beat it. Think of all those busy-busy politicians, millionaires and industry bit-parters who, oddly, seem to have no end of time to practise their swings. Think of George Redmond's tale to the Flood Tribunal and how many of his encounters took place on the golf course; all those lovely, lengthy, innocent social occasions playing a game whose proponents never cease to drone on about its fundamental honesty.

What this means in all-male clubs is that, provided you have a penis, you may be a swindler, an arsonist or even a mass murderer; just don't wheel your trolley across the green, dear boy, or wear short socks with short trousers.

Now cast your mind around the hundreds of thousands of manicured acres amassed by these affluent white male opportunists, acres transformed into bastions of male networking and privilege during the long night of discrimination of every conceivable kind.

Is there a moral issue here? Only when such a club, born of privilege and centuries-old discrimination, develops a sense of entitlement to international stature and to stage prestigious international events that reflect on the general population.

The Ku Klux Klan was firmly on the Augusta National's side during the dust-up about female membership there. That's because the only black faces in the clubhouse were the kitchen porters'. Wonder who serves the gin and tonics at Portmarnock.

No big deal A golfer's view

At the risk of incurring the wrath of women golfers everywhere, isn't Portmarnock Golf Club's insistence on preserving its men-only status its own affair?

The club was established in 1894 "to preserve, protect and maintain the highest standards of links golf for the primary benefits of its members and guests". To say those members should be men was as much its entitlement as it was for the Irish Countrywomen's Association to comprise only women.

Portmarnock welcomes women through its doors and along its fairways regularly. They simply have to be a guest of a member; then they gain restricted access to arguably one of the finest links courses in Ireland or Britain for the knock-down rate of about €1.

But surely, you scream, most women golfers are deprived the pleasure of this great course? This is true, unless you manage to get matey with a member. But isn't it the case with exclusive clubs all over the world?

As for membership, do women not realise the club is peopled by men who revel in its male-only status? Are there women out there who seriously want to elbow their way into the company of such bigots?

At least Portmarnock doesn't go in for the tokenism employed by most Irish golf clubs until recently. Before the Equal Status Act 2000, women members of golf clubs, particularly in Leinster, were legitimately treated as lower life forms. Known as associate members, they could pay only discounted subscriptions, which gave them restricted access to the course and clubhouse, and usually they had no voting rights.

The transition to equal status has been slow, and still huge battles are being fought in clubhouses all over the country. Some women don't want to pay full subscriptions because the status quo suits them, and some resentful men still want to dominate and intimidate. At least Portmarnock does exactly what it says on the tin.

Although Portmarnock golf course is a thing of beauty, the clubhouse is bereft of atmosphere. One friend described it this week as "a great golf course but a terrible golf club", precisely because it lacks the social atmosphere most mixed clubs enjoy.

Its members either view themselves as serious golfers or

bask in the supposed cachet associated with membership of Portmarnock.

Fortunately these days most male golfers enjoy playing golf and sharing clubhouses with women. Golf and its enjoyment are gender-neutral: a good shot is a good shot whether you're wearing plus fours or culottes, and a slow or inconsiderate golfer is always a scourge.

Happily we have evolved from the chauvinist ethos that gave rise to clubs such as Portmarnock and Royal Dublin.

With such a magnificent choice of courses, the few remaining men-only clubs could be likened to relics of auld (in)decency - like wooden golf shafts.

Now can we just get over it?

Madeleine Lyons