After 260
years, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club has decided to let women join as members
after years of protests
The
Telegraph, Holly Watt, Whitehall Editor, 18 Sep 2014
Blazer brigade: R&A members look the part in their match with the St Andrews Ladies Putting Club on Wednesday Photo: Stuart Nicol |
By The
second most important vote in Scotland today has resulted in women being
allowed to become members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. A huge majority
of the club's members - 85% of the turn-out - have voted to allow women to
join.
Almost
three centuries after it was founded, the St Andrews club has bowed to
pressure, with the club’s 2,400 members were asked to vote via a postal ballot.
The chief executive of the club had previously said he expected women to be
allowed to join.
"I am
very pleased indeed to announce that the membership of The Royal and Ancient
Golf Club of St Andrews has voted overwhelmingly in favour of welcoming women
members," said Peter Dawson, as he announced the change. "More than
three quarters of the club’s global membership took part in the ballot, with a
decisive 85% voting for women to become members."
Mr Dawson
had previously refused to see the ban on women as an issue, saying it was
“hardly life-threatening.”
Worldwide,
golf has been slow to move towards equality, with accusations that “old boys’
clubs” were being protected.
The former
culture secretary, Maria Miller, former sports minister Hugh Robertson and
Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, all turned down invitations to attend
the Open at Muirfield last year in protest.
Just over
two years’ ago, the Augusta National golf club – the setting for the US Masters
– abandoned its own longstanding ban on female members and invited the former
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to join.
The club
was founded in 1754 shortly after the town were granted the right to play on
the land now known as the Old Course. The right to play golf was granted on the
proviso that the Archbishop of St Andrews, John Hamilton, was able to retain
possession of the rabbits on the course.
The Old
Course – known as the "home of golf" - has now staged 28 Open
Championships, most recently in 2010.
Other
sports have also moved towards equality, although funding and prize money for
women’s sports is often dwarfed by that for men’s sports.
Last year,
the Royal Yacht Squadron on the Isle of Wight began to admit women as members
for the first time since it was founded almost two centuries ago. The men-only
rule had been so strict that even the Queen, the club’s patron, was once
refused entry by the main door.
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