Progress Landslide! Muirfield Reviewing Membership Policy
/Heartwarming that after all these years, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews are still trying to one-up each other.
Alistair Tait reports that a day after the Royal and Ancient made the first move to take a female member, the men of Muirfield will take a similar vote.
“A working group has been empowered to consult with the membership and to make recommendations to the board about our future,” a club spokesman said in a statement. “As a club, we comply fully with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (U.K. anti-discrimination legislation) and there are no current plans to change the membership criteria, but these will be reviewed.
“Most importantly, we intend to take the time to ensure that plans we adopt will stand us in good stead, not only for the immediate future but for the next 270 years of our great club.”
**The creatures are stirring...Royal St. George's is open to ideas, Royal Troon is reminding us that they have the Ladies Golf Club Troon.
James Corrigan reports:
Tim Checketts, the secretary of Royal St George’s, said: “For a while now, the Royal St George’s Golf Club has been considering its position as a single sex private members golf club and when deliberations are concluded, the committee will make a recommendation to the membership in the normal way.”
Even Royal Troon, the other male-only club on the nine-strong Open roster, was prepared to state its case for gender fairness. David Brown, the Troon secretary, told The Telegraph “we have no plans to change the membership structure at this time”, but pointed out that “although we are a single gender club, some 370 members of the Ladies Golf Club Troon do, in fact, share our on-course facilities”.
