COMMENTARY : The PGA Flap: It’s Never Too Late to Do the Right Thing

Do not watch the PGA Championship on television next month. Make other plans. Buy a Toyota and go to the beach with a cooler of Anheuser-Busch. Take a trip on Delta. Work overtime on an IBM computer.

The good guys deserve the support. The villains deserve what villains deserve.

In a rare moment of real leadership, those members of the business community have withdrawn advertising from the PGA Championship because the host club, Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., took no black members and defended its policy not to.

In this case, the bigger villains are the two Professional Golfers’ Assn. corporations--both the people who own the rights to put on this tournament and the people who run the golf tour and sanction bigotry and the anachronism of golf. It is just now that golf is examining its willingness to give its tournaments and its blessing to clubs that discriminate against blacks, Jews, Latinos and women.

I mean, they had the PGA at this club in 1984, and didn’t they notice anything? When the name came up again, PGA of America, which puts on this tournament, should have just said no. PGA Tour Inc. should withhold sanction of any tournament at sites like Shoal Creek. It would have taken some courage on both parts. Perhaps business decisions will give them some backbone for the future.

The courts have supported the rights of private clubs--under narrower and narrower definitions--to include whom they want. But the PGA shouldn’t put any of its tournaments in those places. Playing there keeps those clubs as green as their fairways; it also says it is just fine to discriminate against all but specified white males.

In this case it is an issue of black and white. The mayor of Birmingham, Richard Arrington, who is black, is trying to smooth over the issue with the possibility of blacks picketing the event on national television. The club’s officials had assured him that they would adhere to a policy of non-discrimination in the future. Arrington said he accepted the assurance on good faith.

But there were the statements of club President Hall Thompson. When the matter came to light last month, Thompson said the club would not be pressured into accepting blacks as members because “that’s just not done in Birmingham. . . . (This) country club is our home, and we pick and choose who we want.”

When the fuss followed, Hall offered his most sincere apologies and said he had been quoted “out of context.” Of course. This tournament is a prize for any club. Hall’s disclaimer reminds us that Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) resigned from two all-white country clubs when he was running for vice president in 1988, and rejoined after losing. So much for expedient public statements.

PGA Tour Inc., responsible for 122 events on the regular tour, the senior tour and the Ben Hogan tour, issued a statement that it was looking into the policy of various sites around the country and will then determine future policy. This is 1990, isn’t it?

“I think it would be incumbent for them to know the policies of all clubs,” said Rose Elder, wife and manager of Lee Elder, the first black to play the Masters, in 1975. She recalled that Cliff Roberts, the force at Augusta National, had vowed that no black man would set foot on that course “except to carry a bag.”

The noise that built over the years forced revision of qualifications for the Masters. Rose Elder says the PGA doesn’t think to ask about policies toward minorities because there are no minorities on the boards that run golf. At present there are only two black men and no black women on the regular tours.

Golf goes about its business as it has for a century, inspecting the rub of the green and the potential for income. The best private clubs, almost by definition, are for rich people; that’s golf. Most clubs have restricted membership and are comfortable with their exclusions, which can be ridiculous.

On the gate at Muirfield in Scotland the sign says, “No Dogs or Women.”

Where women are permitted, they are routinely limited. They are not permitted to play on weekends until after a specified hour because they can play all week while the men are working. What about the women who go to work? What about the husbands and wives who play golf together? Some clubs make women start so late on weekends that they can’t finish before dark.

There are clubs that stipulate that women may not sit at the tables in the window of the clubhouse lounge on weekends because those are coveted places. And there are clubs that say a woman can be a member with her husband for 20 years, but if they divorce, she has to go.

Garden City Golf Club on Long Island permits no women on the grounds. Burning Tree in Washington, D.C., generously permits women before Christmas, so they can buy presents for their husbands at the pro shop. The LPGA says it won’t play at clubs closed to women, but as long as women members accept the policies of their clubs, the LPGA won’t start a fight.

Business understands business. IBM is heavily invested in the black marketplace; black people buy cars and fly in airplanes and drink beer. At one time those advertisers could have shrugged and said it didn’t matter. “I say, bless them for taking the lead to set this right,” Rose Elder said. “Money talks.”

Should we still be asking about this? Well, it’s never too late to do the right thing.