As recently as six weeks ago, when it embarrassed the whole of Scotland as well as itself, it was inconceivable that the self-proclaimed Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers would ever be viewed as an exemplar for the rest of society. It speaks volumes, then, for the mess we are in that things have turned around so quickly.
Facing a crisis in terms of the club’s reputation as well as the commercial implications for themselves and those around them, its leaders have not run away from the problems they contributed to creating, nor are they foolishly ploughing on to dig deeper holes for themselves.
They have, instead, absorbed lessons learned from the outcome of failing to get the right message through and are presumably now going to work much harder to explain things to those either too bull-headed or ignorant to have worked them out for themselves in giving them a second chance to vote on the same issue.
Make no mistake many of those who fit into that category - who were by no means only the dribbling old fogeys of lore, but included some of the club’s younger members - are so determined to demonstrate that no-one else can tell them what to do, that it is by no means a formality. However they will know this time just how they will be viewed as a consequence, with membership of a club which owns one of the world’s greatest courses considered a badge of shame rather than the honour they want it to be.
The committee down Muirfield way might, for all that it would be wrong to be too confident of the outcome in advance, do well to look at how things have been done on the other side of the country as Royal Troon prepares to vote on the same issue – it remains hard to believe we are effectively talking about women’s suffrage in Britain in the 21st century – this week.
They, too, are bound by some arcane rules, which mean only those in attendance at the special meeting may vote. However they are expecting such a huge turn-out that they are not using their clubhouse, but a tented pavilion erected for the Open Championship which they will be hosting in a couple of weeks’ time, all of which effectively implicates the R&A in their decision.
The sport’s governing body has shown a capacity to reinvent itself pretty quickly after overcoming its own resistance to women – just two years ago – not least in its readiness to announce that no more Open Championships would be held at Muirfield until the club sorted itself out. The timing of this ballot, then, suggests that for all that some within Troon’s membership who would have liked the internal case to have been predicated more upon equality grounds than protecting the club’s place on the Open roster, they are extremely confident that the men of the west will show themselves to be more evolved than those across the country.
With all that on board, though, Muirfield members will get their second chance, as they should and will do so better informed, which takes us to the broader point of what has effectively been a failure of journalism in a modern world dominated by sound-bites and social media.
Just as, during the European referendum, radio stations dug out clips of wonderful intellectual political discussions between the likes of Roy Jenkins and Tony Wedgewood-Benn when the first version took place in the seventies and asked why we no longer have time and space for such intellectual debate, so the easy option among sports writers was too often taken on the male-only issue by hiding behind democracy and describing it as simply a matter for private members clubs to decide for themselves.
Too often those with the best platforms were guilty of failing to offer sufficiently provocative analysis, to the extent that Muirfield members thought they could ignore the dissenting voices and carry on as they pleased, unaware of the repercussions.
The general consensus is that having got it wrong they will get it right next time and while that view should be treated warily since, as with the hyped immigration issue, we should not under-estimate the capacity some have to seek to feel better about themselves by excluding those against whom they are prejudiced, we can only hope on behalf of the 64 per cent who voted correctly first time around that sufficient others have seen sense.
Troon, which eradicated nonsense like having separate doors for women guests a long time ago, will surely get it right too.
That just leaves the rest of us who now seem sure to have a second independence referendum and/or, a second European referendum to look forward to when we will surely address our previous mistakes.
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