Irish clubs keep mum on St Andrews’ equality move

Neither of the two Irish clubs that exclude women from full membership were available for comment yesterday as The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews announced it will recommend women be finally allowed to join, 260 years after it was founded.

Highly regarded links courses Portmarnock GC and The Royal Dublin GC, situated on the north side of Dublin city, were unable to provide a spokesperson to comment on whether they were prepared to follow St Andrews, who are asking their 2,400 members vote to allow women to join.

The Royal and Ancient's position on the issue is important because the club holds a unique historical position in golf and through two and a half centuries was a leading authority in the world game.

Separate entity
In 2004 it devolved responsibility for the administration of the Rules of Golf, the running of the British Open Championship and other key events and is a now separate entity to The R&A.

St Andrews, however, remains a private golf club with a world-wide membership.

The move follows intense pressure on the club in Britain to change their policy and last year during the British Open at Muirfield, the former British sports minister, Hugh Robertson, and culture secretary Maria Miller turned down invitations to attend, specifically because of the club’s ban on women members.

For the same reason, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, also said he would not be attending.

Three of the nine venues used in the British Open roster are male-only clubs, the others being Royal Troon in Scotland and Royal St George’s in England.

It was also widely reported earlier this year that the R&A had consulted with sponsors including global bank HBSC and other stakeholders about taking the British Open to male-only clubs following Muirfield.

Giles Morgan, HSBC's global head of sponsorship and events, told the R&A t his company was uncomfortable about being associated with the Major being held at such venues.

Last staged
The Irish Open was last staged at Portmarnock in 2003, when New Zealand's Michael Campbell won the first prize of €300,000.

“This is welcome news from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and I urge its members to follow their Committees’ recommendations and vote ‘yes’ for women members,” said Britain’s Minister for Sport and Equalities Helen Grant.

“It would mark a step in the right direction for the sport and I would hope encourage the remaining golf clubs that still have anachronistic single-sex member policies to follow suit.”

R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said he was delighted with the news but would not be drawn on what it meant for Championship venues or whether pressure would be exerted on the other clubs to follow St Andrews.

“We very much hope once the vote is taken we will be welcoming women to the club,” said Dawson. “It’s something that has been expected; I’m not going to say overdue but I’m sure I’ll be asked that question.

“Early indications from the members are very positive indeed. We have been talking about this for quite a while and it’s our governance role which has been the driving factor.

“Society is changing, sport is changing, golf is changing and I think it’s appropriate for a governing body to take this step. This is not about the Open Championship. This is about our governance role.”