Martha Burk's showdown with William 'Hootie' Johnson at Augusta over women members is a battle royale, writes George Kimball
In June of 1990, amid threats that the PGA Championship scheduled to be played there two months later might be shifted to another venue, the members of an Alabama country club hastily convened to scuttle a whites-only clause in its by-laws and conferred membership at Shoal Creek on an African-American businessman named Louis Willie. So anxious was Shoal Creek to defuse the situation that they even waived the $20,000 initiation fee to whisk Willie through the door.
Recognising the handwriting on the wall, Augusta National Golf Club soon took steps to avoid similar embarrassment. Although the names of prospective members commonly languish for years on a waiting list, Augusta accelerated the process to make Ron Townsend the club's first black member. When the Masters Tournament was played the following April, Townsend, in his green club jacket, was conspicuously trotted out to stand around like a cigar-store Indian in the most visible spots on the grounds.
One could scarcely move through the media centre or the clubhouse that spring without tripping over his highly-visible presence, and one inevitably felt pangs of sympathy for Townsend, who was plainly being used as a prop even as some of his fellow members privately referred to him as "our nigger".
It was an embarrassing episode you wouldn't wish on anyone, and you can't help wondering why Martha Burk would even want to subject a woman to the same experience.
Tiger Woods will return to Augusta National this week in search of an unprecedented third consecutive Masters title, but the eyes of the world will likely be riveted on a car-park down Washington Avenue, where Burk, the chairperson of the National Council of Women's Organisations, will lead a highly public demonstration designed to bludgeon Augusta National into admitting its first female member. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has never missed a chance to get his face before the TV cameras, will be leading ancillary demonstrations, while permits have also been issued to several counter-demonstrating groups, among them the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who have, to Burk's evident delight, come down on the side of the golf club in the dispute.
That matters have come to this reflects a year-long battle of rhetoric, poor judgment, and ill-chosen phraseology on the part of Burk and her chief adversary, Augusta National chairman, William "Hootie" Johnson.
In June of last year Burk, who does not play golf and by her own admission knows "nothing" about the game, wrote Johnson a private letter demanding that Augusta National open the club's "membership to women now, so that this is not an issue when the tournament is staged next year". Had Johnson at this point told Martha just what he'd told reporters whenever the subject was introduced ("give us time; we're working on it") the matter might have been defused then and there. Even had he done the sensible thing and chucked Burk's letter into the bin he probably wouldn't have heard from her for at least another year.
Instead Hootie immediately raised the stakes. He fired back a dismissive, three-paragraph note calling Burk's missive "offensive and coercive", concluding that "any further communication between us would not be productive". The same day, he released Burk's letter, along with a statement to the press vowing that Augusta National would "not be bullied, threatened, or intimidated at the point of a bayonet". Burk almost immediately began turning the thumbscrews, turning her pressure toward corporate sponsors such as Citigroup, Coca-Cola, IBM, and Cadillac, demanding that they end their association with the Masters.
Noting that Augusta National was the "true target", Johnson responded with a pre-emptive strike of his own by removing the aforementioned sponsors ("it's not their fight") from the line of fire and announcing that the Masters would be televised commercial-free.
Burk then attempted, without success, to pressurise the CBS network into dropping the telecast, and also turned her attention to the defending champion, and in this crusade she had some friends in high places. The New York Times ran an editorial suggesting that Woods should withdraw from the 2003 Masters in protest of the club's discriminatory policies. While expressing a modicum of sympathy, Tiger typically demurred.
"If others had taken that view, he'd be a caddie at Augusta," Martha snapped.
Last week Burk got so carried away with her crusade that, at a news conference in New York city, she attempted to equate the Augusta membership controversy to the unpleasantries taking place in Iraq. It was a gaffe which managed to antagonise people on both sides of both issues.
"Showcasing a club that discriminates against women is an insult to the nearly quarter-million women in the US armed forces," said Burk, sounding nearly as stupid as Hootie Johnson. "It's appalling that the women who are willing to lay down their lives for democratic ideals should be shut out of this club."
Burk wants to demonstrate directly before the club entrance on Magnolia Lane, but has been granted a permit to assemble a third of a mile from the venue. Permits have also been approved for the Ku Klux Klan, the Rev Jackson's PUSH/Rainbow coalition, and a group called WAMB, which stands for "Women Against Martha Burk". The Augusta City Council has split 5-5, strictly along racial lines, each time the demonstration issue has come up, and in each instance the tie-breaking vote has then been cast by the city's white Mayor Bob Young. You wouldn't say that Young has come down on Hootie's side, but his vote has ensured that matters will remain in the hands of the local sheriff.
Burk has appealed the decision to keep her protest far from Magnolia Lane, but in the meantime her adversaries' worst fear is that if rebuffed she will attempt to lead her followers in an act of deliberate civil disobedience. If Martha Burk could get a bunch of Georgia cops to wade in and start swinging billy-clubs while hooded Klansmen cheer them on with the TV cameras rolling, she might emerge with the greatest public relations coup of all.
Meanwhile, the guy you have to feel truly sorry for is the defending champion, whose historic quest looks likely to be thoroughly overshadowed.
"The Masters," said Woods, "used to be the first major of the year and everyone looked forward to that. "But," he sighed, "this isn't just about a golf tournament any more."