John Huggan: Golf and the gender equality question

The 1929 Women's Open at St Andrews. Almost a century later, women are still not allowed in the R&A clubhouse. Picture: Getty

THE too-often Olde Worlde treatment of women golfers by their male counterparts is a subject that, especially for non-golfers, has long provoked reactions ranging from incredulity, through to hysterical laughter and all the way to full-blown outrage.

And questions, so many questions. . .

Can it be true that the rules of golf worldwide (except in the USA and Mexico) are conducted and administered by a club that has, since 1754, excluded everybody of the female persuasion? Every single one of them?

Yes and yes.

So the Open Championship, the biggest, oldest and most prestigious event in the game, routinely visits clubs where there are no women members?

Yes.

The clubhouse occupied by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews does not allow women to enter the premises other than for “Lady Guests Dinner Nights?”

That’s right.

Today, in the 21st century?

Yes.

Are you kidding me?

No.

And these are all things that the First Minister of Scotland and the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom have apparently only just become aware of? Where have they been these last few decades?

Yes. Maybe off on some other politically opportunistic jaunt.

Sadly, of course, all of the above does nothing but tarnish the wider reputation of the greatest game of all. The routinely discriminatory treatment of women within golf – and the very existence of an all-male club in a position of power and authority that extends beyond their own gender – is an embarrassment to all.

Or is it?

Disappointingly, it would seem not. Forget for a moment the invariably grey-haired, soup-stained, dandruff-festooned, public school educated and checked-shirt/loud corduroy trouser/brogue shoe/straw hat-wearing members of clubs such as the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, Royal St George’s, Royal Troon, Prestwick and Western Gailes. They, given the evidence of the past 250 years or so, are a lost cause, their rampant misogyny is far too ingrained to change now.

Instead, let’s focus on lady golfers themselves. By their inactivity and seeming indifference to the bigotry that surrounds them, they, sad to say, are part of the problem rather than major players in the solution. My goodness, next year the Ricoh British Women’s Open will be played at the aforementioned Royal St George’s, a place where, for 51 weeks of 2014, women will not be welcome.

The Ricoh event is overseen by the St Andrews-based Ladies Golf Union. On a radio show last week, Shona Malcolm, chief executive of the Ladies’ Golf Union, claimed to be unconcerned by the fact that the Open Championship, run by her near-neighbours the R&A, is routinely played at clubs where she is ineligible for membership.

Instead, Malcolm, pictured, pleaded for what she seems to think of as “understanding.” Her organisation, she said, was one which prefers to effect change from within the system. Cutting off relations with their male counterparts would, she felt, only make things worse.