Do I have to turn in my liberal card if I’m not excited about this?  Yes, I think it was a stupid policy to exclude women, but frankly I don’t see why the whole thing got made into such a big deal.  It’s a place for rich people to hang out with other rich people and do, I don’t know, rich people stuff.  And play golf.

I seriously doubt that this will open new career paths for Condoleeza Rice or Darla Moore.  Rice was the Secretary of State; I’m guessing that carries more weight for networking purposes than being a member of some fancy golf club.  I bet when she was picked to be Secretary of State, her first thought wasn’t “Great!  Now maybe I can finally get into that golf club!”

Look at this list of famous people in this club.  I bet none of them got where they are by becoming members of that club.  I’m thinking their success was the cause, rather than the effect, of their membership.

It would be one thing if it were the only golf course in the world, or if the ladies they admitted were, for example, too poor to go to another location to golf.  As it is, why, surely there are adequate substitute golf clubs that Rice and Moore could go to if they wanted.  Maybe loyal reader and golfer P.M. Prescott can explain why this particular place would be so special.

I don’t actually see how discrimination really hurts anyone in this particular case, except for the discriminators.  Since the entire point of the club appears to be propagating a prestigious reputation that it has manufactured for itself, the bad P.R. for being “the place that doesn’t admit women” could get to be very damaging, as indeed it ultimately did.  I’m not defending their policy, but I don’t see that it was hurting anyone except the people who made it.

Bottom line: I think the people running Augusta National were being stupid by not admitting women.  However, I think people need to quit acting like the change in policy is some kind of giant feminist victory. It’s nothing of the kind.