Muirfield golf club finally invites its first women to join – leader comment

Muirfield golf club has invited 12 women to join the club, two years after the male-only membership voted to allow them to do so.

Henry Fairweather announced the result of the vote two years ago to allow women to join the Muirfield club (Picture: Jon Savage)

Don’t be alarmed! There is absolutely no need to panic. You have not fallen into a wormhole in the fabric of space and time – or an Einstein-Rosen bridge to give it its proper name. You are still in Scotland and it is the year 2019.

You have not been magically, or even pseudo-scientifically, transported back to the 1950s and there’s no chance of bumping into your younger self, your parents or grandparents.

We feel moved to issue this clarification for readers who may have been somewhat taken aback by the news that a golf club – indeed, one of Scotland’s leading golf clubs – has finally invited its first female members to join, some two years after just over 80 per cent of members voted in favour of the idea.

So congratulations to the privately owned Muirfield club – founded in 1744 – and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers on their somewhat belated entry into the 21st century and, of course, to the 12 women whose names will now go down in history, alongside the likes of the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to matriculate at any British university, in 1869.