Augusta National says Masters will be without commercials - rather than invite women into club

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 8/30/02 | Glenn Sheeley

[GeneD]

Augusta National Golf Club is putting its money where its mouth is in its fight with a women's group pressuring the club to admit a female member.

Club chairman Hootie Johnson announced Friday that because corporate sponsors of the Masters' telecast are being pressured by the National Council of Women's Organizations, the 2003 tournament will be shown without sponsors or commercials.

At least golf fans will benefit from the fight. The 2003 telecast would have contained its normal four commerical minutes per hour. With 12 1/2 hours of live programming, that's 50 minutes of commericials that will not take golf fans away from the action.

"Augusta National is NCWO's true target," Johnson said in a statement. "It is therefore unfair to put the Masters media sponsors in the position of having to deal with this pressure. Accordingly, we have told our media sponsors that we will not request their participation for the 2003 Masters."

Rather than put its sponsors in a position where boycotts or their products or services would be threatened, Johnson said the Masters will absorb the advertising fees that would have been paid by IBM, Coca-Cola and Citigroup.

Johnson said, "We are sorry, but not surprised, to see those corporations drawn into this matter, but contunue to insist that our private club should not be 'managed' by an outside group. . . There may come a day when women will be invited to join our club, but that decision must be ours. We also believe that the Masters and the club are different, and that one should not affect the other."

[Orbiter]

Hootie ought to get an even more original idea than you've offered. Make it a public club with membership granted on a first come, first served basis. Oh, and set the membership fee at, say, $500,000,000 -- waived, of course, at the Membership Committee's discretion.

[Orbiter]

Appreciate your reply. Does my Glock 19 bite like the 27? Ouch! (Prolly the last follow-up, Mr. Moderator)

[humblegunner]

Does my Glock 19 bite like the 27?

I have no idea, but I'm looking into getting a used
Glock 17, I'll let you know! (Way off topic, 'scuse, please!)

[Khurkris]

BRAVO !

[Guillermo]

You implied it. Which is typical for the leftist freaks who shout down anyone who opposes their wacky freedom-hating ideas.

[BikerNYC]

They have a right to protest and they have a right to lose and have scorn heaped upon them.

I agree, but scorn will be heaped from both sides.

[Republic]

OH HORSEHOCKEY!

I am a female and enjoy a variety of women's groups. I was SICKENED when the Rotary Club and other men's groups were forced to allow women to enter-it stole a specialness from the group, took something wonderful and very right and added the pressures that come with maintaining a certain "civility" or what have you because women were present. And this works in reverse, of course.

If this golf course wants to remain a bastion for men.....I say MORE POWER to um! Good for um!!!

[billbears]

White Southerners used "tradition" to justify excluding blacks from society.

Son, you better check your history. northerners were doing it for longer and worse than Southerners could ever imagine. Don't play this issue at Augusta off as a 'Southern' thing. This is an issue on whether or not an organization has a right to admit members it chooses to instead of what society chooses for them

[billbears]

If an individual wants to participate in commerence or participate in society as a whole, then the government can set some minimal guidelines on what that participation requires

Wrong, case in point, the Boy Scouts of America. SCOTUS has decided that the organization can ban sexual deviants from being Scoutmasters. This is an organization that does make money and is 'in business' as you say. And while the deviants are up in arms about it, you know where they're up in arms about it? Outside and outside of Scouts

[dcwusmc]

When SCOTUS and POTUS and Congress put their money into a privately held business that is not committing acts of fraud on its customers or stock owners, then they can set the conditions for its existence. Until then they are as wrong as two left shoes, period. Gooberment has vastly overreached itself, which is a normal thing for it to do. Your "logic" is one reason for that. You want them to make things the way YOU think they should be and if it is not YOUR business to run, it is none of your business, nor gooberment's to try to stick your nose in it. You can choose not to patronize the business, you can ask your friends not to, but it is NOT YOURS TO REGULATE BY FORCE OF LAW... do you yet comprehend that simple fact? Absent fraud of one or another sort, gooberment has no reason to put its claws anywhere NEAR a business. Nor do YOU!

[dcwusmc]

I suppose that you'd be OK with law and public opinion that said that Blacks could be lynched on any whim one could think up? Just because the law and public opinion favor something does not confer a mantle of righteousness on it... you are too caught up in your victimhood rhetoric to think straight.

Should you be required to invite ANYONE who wants to visit over for dinner? You live in a house on a public street, after all. Send me your address so the wife and I can come over tonight. And maybe I'll bring my brothers and sisters and her sisters and all. Sure it's your private house and all, but you cannot be allowed to discriminate like that.

On the other hand, GOOBERMENT has not the right to discriminate, your "sundown" cities are rightly a thing of the past. Gooberments, where they exist, are supposed to protect ALL their citiizens equally...

[dcwusmc]

I also noted that, while businesses have the right to allow only whom they wish to patronize them, as a rule that is a stupid and unproductive choice to make. Just as your decision to not invite me and the wife over for dinner is dumb. I mean we provide witty and urbane conversation and we're great people to know. But it is YOUR choice and your loss... same with a business. Their choice and their loss of good customers. Oh well!

[1Old Pro]

. "It is therefore unfair to put the Masters media sponsors in the position of having to deal with this pressure. Accordingly, we have told our media sponsors that we will not request their participation for the 2003 Masters."

Feminists don't care about fairness.

[1Old Pro]

Anyways, which Network will air the Masters if they can't make any $$ off of it?

Set it up on pay per view. Get all four days for 10 bucks. 5 million viewers at 10 bucks would actually make a huge profit.

[dcwusmc]

Only in a FREE society do businesses have the right be conducted as the owners see fit. Do you own any stock in Denny's? Or Adams-Mark? If so, then you have some say in how they do business. If not, not. You seem to think it a good thing that gooberment puts its nose and the use of its force to tell a business how it should work and this totally absent any fraud or wrongdoing on the part of the business. Would YOU accept such restrictions and rules when it comes to your private home? Do you ever see businessmen out in the streets chasing down people they don't want as customers to spew their hate into the non-custmer's face? I don't recall it even at the height of the '60s... If they did such things you might have a legitimate cause of action. Because then they would be actively unlawful. Freedom of association, like it or not, still holds sway in this country and, recognized or not, that holds for privately-owned businesses and clubs. You may not like it, the Supremes may deny it and FedGov may persecute owners over it, but you and they are as wrong as if they decided to allow lynch laws once more. Which these are: lynch laws that outlaw non-coercive private behaviours which are not considered PC.