MEN-only golf clubs are "a bit of an anachronism", according to Shona Malcolm.
Then again, adds the Ladies' Golf Union's chief executive, the sport is undergoing an "evolutionary process". She may be right – though if the evolution of the human species had moved at the pace that seems to be tolerated in some sections of the golfing establishment, we would still be dragging our knuckles across the swamp.
Neanderthal attitudes appear to be prevalent at Muirfield, home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, where today, the 142nd edition of the Open Championship draws to a close. The establishment boasts a long, proud history but for the past week, the world's attention has been fixed not on the quality of the course, but on the embarrassing fact that, 95 years after women gained the vote, they are barred from becoming members of this august institution.
Political heavyweights have rushed to condemn the men-only rule, with golf-loving First Minister Alex Salmond rightly deciding to boycott the tournament. "If we are to be the future of this great game it is only right we have equality between men and women," he said.
Labour MP and UK shadow culture minister Harriet Harman went further, calling on Muirfield to "drag itself into the 21st century" and demanding a ban on all men-only sports clubs.
This newspaper could not agree more. If our existing anti-discrimination legislation allows private clubs such as Muirfield to discriminate against women, then clearly that legislation is inadequate.
Meanwhile, golf's governing body, the R&A should, as UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller suggests, insist that the Open Championshipscan only be staged at clubs which allow male and female members, thus effectively forcing Muirfield and its anachronistic cohorts, such as Royal Troon, to stop behaving like silly schoolboys.
Unfortunately, the R&A's chief executive, Peter Dawson, seems in no hurry to move his sport out of the Dark Ages. Last week, he said: "If, on a Saturday morning, a guy gets out of the marital bed and plays golf with his chums, that is not on any kind of par with racial discrimination, anti-Semitism or any of these things."
Dawson talks as though this were a trivial matter. There is nothing trivial about a culture that discriminates against 50% of the population, and if there is a loophole in the Equality Act that allows that culture to flourish, then that loophole must be closed.
Last year, one of the Western world's last bastions of sporting chauvinism, Georgia's exclusive Augusta National Golf Club, finally admitted two female members, including former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Britain's golfing establishment needs to be forced to do likewise. And if the Muirfield debacle proves to be the catalyst for that revolution, then the 142nd Open Championship will one day be judged to have been a proud chapter of Scotland's history.
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