Couples, O’Meara to Cross Line

Former Masters champions Fred Couples and Mark O’Meara said Wednesday that they have no intention of following the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s suggestion that professional golfers stay away from the Masters to protest the lack of female members at Augusta National. Couples, the 1992 champion, and O’Meara, who won in 1998, also said it is unfair to single out Tiger Woods in the lingering controversy over the private, men-only club.

“Am I going to adhere to a picket line?” O’Meara said. “Listen, I am all for women’s rights. I am for equal pay and for women doing as good a job as men....

“But I think this is getting a little out of control, in my opinion.”

In another development in the five-month-old controversy, LPGA Commissioner Ty Votaw said the time has come for Augusta National to open its doors to a female member. In a state-of-the-tour speech at West Palm Beach, Fla., the site of the LPGA’s Tour Championship, Votaw said he needed to take a stand.

“We think the right thing to do is to admit women so we can move on from this damaging and distracting debate,” Votaw said later in a telephone interview.

“It is Augusta’s right as a private organization not to admit women, but it is not the right thing to do.”

But while Votaw called for an end to the controversy, it seems to be picking up speed and spinning in new directions, almost daily.

In a prepared statement, Glenn Greenspan, director of communications for Augusta National, said single-gender organizations are legally and morally proper.

“It is clear that millions of Americans both support and belong to these organizations,” Greenspan said. “The Ladies Professional Golf Assn. is entitled to its opinion too, but we respectfully disagree.”

Jackson said Friday that “people of good will,” including sponsors and golfers, should not cross a possible picket line at Augusta National, which hosts the Masters.

Jackson vowed to organize a protest and said such a picket line identifies “gender apartheid” at the club.

However, neither Couples nor O’Meara said they could support Jackson’s position.

O’Meara termed the standoff between Martha Burk, chairwoman of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, and Augusta National Chairman Hootie Johnson “an unfortunate situation” between opposing sides with differing, strong opinions.

“The way I look at the whole situation, women are allowed to play golf [at Augusta National],” O’Meara said. “It is not an all-men’s club in that women are not allowed to play there at all. Certainly, the attention that there is not a woman member there does bring a point.

“Is that going to keep me from playing there? No. I am a golf pro. This is what I do. The Masters and Augusta National have things about them that you love and there are things about them that you do not necessarily agree with.

“I would think that sooner or later, a woman will be a member. Does that make everything hunky-dory? I don’t know. Martha Burk has made a point. Hootie is trying to stay his ground because he feels it is a private club.”

Couples and O’Meara made their comments in a conference call.

Woods, who is in Japan playing an exhibition, affirmed his intention to play the Masters, where he is a three-time winner and two-time defending champion. Woods said he was frustrated at being mentioned in a New York Times editorial that urged him, and no one else by name, to skip the Masters as a gesture against the club’s membership policy.

Woods has said that a woman should be invited to join Augusta as a member, but that he has no vote in the matter.

Couples said Woods is right to feel frustrated at being singled out in the newspaper’s editorial.

“I think it is highly unfair that anyone throw him to the wolves and try to have him make a statement that says ‘I am not going to play.’ He plays golf for a living.

“I just feel like it is a little bit of nonsense.”

There will be a woman member at Augusta National, Couples predicted.

“It’ll happen the way Augusta wants it to happen,” he said. “And I think Tiger will like the decision, but so will I and so will Mark O’Meara. I just feel like, this poor kid, any time something happens, he needs to have a comment, and he does it with his golf clubs.”

If the controversy is bad for Woods, Votaw said it is bad for golf. He said the time for debate has passed, that no story or poll overrides the fact that not admitting women to the club is an error.

“Augusta’s exclusionary practices with respect to women speak volumes to the world and to the game of golf,” Votaw said. “The message it sends is that women cannot be part of that face of golf, and that is wrong. Augusta has broken the race barrier but has chosen not to break the gender barrier.”

Votaw also said the LPGA’s board of directors has agreed to his proposal to try to change the LPGA bylaws and open the teaching club professional membership to men.

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Tom Barber has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Southern California Section of the PGA. Barber, a 34-year member of the PGA of America, is the son of former PGA Tour player Jerry Barber. The SCPGA also named Ron Skayhan, a teaching pro at Hillcrest Country Club, as player of the year and Tom Schauppner, the pro at Long Beach Golf Center, as senior player of the year.