Time for Augusta to pick a female golf member

The sizzling topic today is not politics, but sports - specifically whether the venerable Augusta National Golf Club will admit its first female member this year. MSNBC, USA Today's Christine Brennan and the Wall Street Journal's Jeremy Gordon are among a multitude who have chimed in. Even President Obama, when asked, offered an opinion: He thinks a woman should be admitted. Who knew?

Speculation is high that the club will. Indeed, as I write this, it might already have.

That's because the club has a long-standing tradition of inviting as members the chief executives of major sponsors of the Masters golf tournament. This year, for the first time, one of those CEOs is a woman, IBM's Ginni Rometty. IBM has sponsored the tournament for several years and the Augusta National has always extended membership to the company's officers. To decline to do so for Rometty, who does play golf, would be a public departure from its past policy.

The Augusta National is a private, members-only club, despite its very high-profile and iconic golf tournament, The Masters, which invites the public in through tickets and TV. So, members have a right to restrict membership anyway they please.

But they should take this opportunity to remove the barrier. Unlike in 2003 when Martha Burk, then president of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, brought picketers to the Masters trying to force the club's hand in admitting a female, all the club has to do now to get this monkey off its back is adhere to a policy it has followed in the past. And because Rometty would be admitted because she heads a major sponsoring organization, just as men CEOs have been, this invitation wouldn't obligate the golf club to approve any other women for membership who don't fit that qualification - if that's their fear.

The Augusta National should welcome the chance to get past this continuing controversy. It's membership discrimination based on the idea of it being a private club has been wearing thin for years. As I've said before, a private club with as much public persona as the Augusta National can't reasonably use being "private" as a shield against criticism of its refusal to admit female members. It wasn't an effective shield when the club dragged its feet about inviting a black golfer to the Masters - which didn't happen until Lee Elder participated in 1975. And it was ineffective when the club was criticized for not admitting black members, which didn't happen until 1990.

If Rometty isn't offered membership, it would be a slap in the face to IBM and its CEO. It will hard to spin the rejection otherwise. IBM should rethink future sponsorship if that happens.

But it is quite possible that the golf club has already quietly removed this last barrier against women, and by the time the green jacket is presented to the new Masters champ on Sunday this will no longer be an issue. As Billy Payne noted in his opaque statement on the issue on Wednesday, "all issues of membership are now and have historically been subject to the private deliberation of members." I hope they have privately deliberated wisely.

Augusta is my hometown. My family home, where my sister still lives, is about a 10-minute jog from the Augusta National. I grew up around golf. My grandparents worked at the Augusta National. My grandfather taught us grandkids to play golf on an improvised course on his farm. My grandmother did the seasonal hiring of grounds workers for the Masters. I worked there during the Masters a couple of times myself before I went to college. On many Easter Sundays, half the congregation of my home church could be found there working instead of worshipping.

So I'm very familiar with the tradition and history of the Masters and the Augusta National. It's a beautiful course and a great tournament. That will still be true if a woman is admitted as a member.

Posted by associate editor Fannie Flono