Women should spurn, not want, invitation from Augusta

The question has been whether Augusta National should invite women to be members.

The question should be whether women should accept the invitation.

Augusta National's history of exclusion is infamous, going back to when one of the club's founders, Clifford Roberts, reputedly proclaimed, “As long as I'm alive, all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black.”

Augusta eventually relented on the racial issue, and the focus in recent decades shifted to the exclusion of women as members.

Ladies, if I were you the response to an offer of access would be thanks, but no thanks.

It's bad enough that women would have to hang out in a club that really didn't want them. Worse would be that they'd have to associate with a less mature, less intelligent, less sensitive gender.

Take Tiger Woods. He throws around golf clubs and gutter profanities while generally conducting himself as too many men do during a frustrating round of golf (yes, frustrating round of golf is redundant).

Sad to say, I admit to flipping a club every once in awhile, along with the occasional bird at myself. However, I can't recall ever seeing a woman throw a club or curse out loud on the public courses I play.

We're different from you, ladies. We're little children in the playground still calling each other by nicknames like Tiger, Bubba and Boo.

We men are wee men in need of our own space to discuss pressing matters like whether Heidi Klum or Charlize Theron has better ankles and which of us was drunkest the first time we saw Springsteen.

Some men just have to retreat to man caves and men's clubs, where nobody snickers at white belts. Neighborhood taverns — the dungier ones women wouldn't dare be seen in — used to be where we retreated, but fewer of those exist these days.

One of the few remaining options is a cattle drive like in “City Slickers,” where we can quiz each other on who played third base for our favorite team 30 years ago. But who has the time, money or energy to drive cattle?

With women around, men are reluctant in this politically correct era to tell dirty jokes and too embarrassed to insist that foot corns are responsible for sliced drives.

Ladies, seriously, Augusta's members don't dislike you. Heck, they love you. Just not at that particular time when they need to belch on the 10th tee.

Butler National in Oak Brook is our local world-class course that used to host the Western Open. I loved shooting my annual 150 out there during the tournament's media days.

But the “but” in Butler is that the club excludes women even more strictly than Augusta does.

That's the members' right at both places, though personally I wouldn't join any club that excludes anybody based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or preference of the Cubs or White Sox.

So here's some advice, ladies: Find someplace to join other than Augusta National or Butler National, someplace where the company is up to your superior standards.

Being the better gender makes you too good to stoop to become members of a golf club that is only grudgingly allowing you to join.

Meanwhile, your absence would free up the men to do what they really want most to do, which is scratch themselves wherever they want whenever they want.

mimrem@dailyherald.com