The First Lady of Golf

Dinah Shore never wanted to be a member of Augusta National. All she wanted was to join a golf club where she could play any time without having to be some guy’s guest.

In 1972, her name became part of the richest women’s tournament in the world, the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winners Circle in Rancho Mirage, but she was on the outside looking in as far as playing at country clubs was concerned.

Recent efforts by Martha Burk and her National Council of Women’s Organizations to demand that women be allowed to become members of Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters begins today, stirred memories of Shore’s plight three decades ago.

“An unmarried woman just isn’t allowed to play at most country clubs unless she’s the guest of a member,” she said in an interview with The Times on the eve of her tournament. “I’d like to be serious about golf, but how can I when I’m not allowed on a course without being invited?”

It was a new circumstance for the songstress named four times as one of the “10 most-admired women in the world.”

A champion swimmer at Vanderbilt University and a tournament tennis player with the Hollywood celebrity crowd, she was used to participating with men and women alike.

When David Foster, then president of Colgate-Palmolive, talked her into putting her name on his golf tournament, she decided to become serious about golf. She took a cram course from professional Eric Monti at the Hillcrest Country Club.

She was welcome on the driving range and the putting green, but when she wanted to play 18 holes, no way without a man inviting her.

“I earn and pay my own way as a great many women do,” she said. “Why should unmarried women be discriminated against -- unmarried men are not. I don’t want to sound like a women’s libber. I’m not chauvinistic in the slightest; I just want to play golf.”

After the story appeared in The Times, Hillcrest members voted Dinah a membership. She was also inundated with other offers.

“I had three definite proposals for marriage, plus a couple of other ‘iffy’ ones that sounded more like propositions. They could have gone either way and I was afraid to find out.

“I was flattered, naturally, but if there’s one thing I have learned, it’s that you don’t trust men. They’re adorable, but more for gamesmanship than trustmanship.”

She also received more than 100 out-of-town offers for membership in golf clubs as far away as New York, New England and Tennessee. Not one from Augusta, however.

Years later, when the Mission Hills Country Club named one of its courses after her, Dinah laughed and said gaining her membership had its negative side.

“I lost my excuse for not playing better,” she said. “When I couldn’t play, I would use that as my excuse when I didn’t play as well as I would have liked. Now that I have the chance to play, I’m sorry to say, there’s no difference in my game.”

Dinah, whose graceful style as a singer and hostess of her “Dinah’s Place” TV show endeared her to the public, was more concerned about her “golfing look” than she was about her golfing score.

On the day the Dinah Shore Course was dedicated, shortly after hitting a ceremonial shot off the first tee, with a large gallery cheering, she asked, “How did I look, did I do OK?”

When a reporter responded, “Not bad, a little left of the fairway, but a pretty nice hit,” she frowned and said, “No, that’s not what I meant, I don’t care where the ball went. How did I look, did I look like I knew what I was doing?”

Assured that her swing was as a graceful as she had hoped, she smiled and finished her round with a respectable 87.

Dinah Shore died Feb. 24, 1994, and Colgate-Palmolive is no longer affiliated with the tournament, but its legacy lives on as the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

To most, it’s still the Dinah Shore. As Patricia Meunier- Lebouc -- who hadn’t yet been born when the first tournament was played -- said after leading the tournament after 36 holes, “I will be able to say I was leading ... the third day of the Dinah Shore.”

Years after her first complaints about not being allowed to become a club member, Dinah said that a friend who was membership chairman of a prominent Los Angeles area club explained to her why women were not acceptable as members.

“I’ll tell you why unmarried women aren’t allowed, if you promise not to tell anyone who told you,” Dinah recalled. “It’s because most of the membership in golf and country clubs are older, married men, especially on the boards of directors. Their wives wouldn’t allow them to accept unmarried women because they consider them predators.

“It’s not fair, but that’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will probably be for a long time.”

Maybe the person Martha Burk should be talking to is not Hootie Johnson, but Hootie Johnson’s wife.