Question: Did Martha Burk, who wrote a letter to Augusta
in 2002 and led a protest in 2003, help or hurt the cause?
Answer: I think Burk set back the process by years.
Sometimes a troubling bit of revisionism can reside in a
single sentence. The question quoted above was posed by Golf Digest. The answer
was provided by Golf Digest Editor, Marcia Chambers. As is often the case with
revisionism, I have every confidence most readers will have missed it, or at
least will wonder how it could possibly be relevant.
Chamber’s response revises history by her use of the word, process. Her sentence makes it appear that prior to Martha
Burk there was a process in place at Augusta National to admit women members.
This would be analogous to a contention that Rosa Parks set back the process of
racial desegregation by refusing to sit in the back of the bus in Alabama back
in 1955.
Quite simply, organizations, whether golf clubs or municipal
transit companies, do not like to be told what to do.
As I grow older, even small examples of revisionism are
troubling to me. It’s easy for me to imagine a young person reading Chambers’
quote and imagining Burk as a common rabble-rouser just out to make trouble.
The PGA’s history does not allow for much leeway when it
comes to issues of equality. The end of its Caucasian Clause came in the year
of my birth, 1961. It feels real to me since its stain continued into my own
time.
Too long ago for you? Consider this:
In 1984, Shoal Creek Country Club hosted the PGA
Championship. At the time, the club had no black members. It is stunning to
think that the PGA of 1984 wasn’t savvy enough to be aware of that fact at the
time. If that’s easy enough to forgive, how can we forget that when 1990 rolled
around the PGA again awarded Shoal Creek with its most prestigious tournament?
Though six years had passed, there were still no black
members at Shoal Creek.
Fortunately, the Martha Burks of that time and place were
not silent. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference threatened a boycott
and sponsors like IBM pulled millions of dollars of commercial advertising from
the broadcast. In a matter of weeks, Shoal Creek hastily accepted a local black
businessman as an honorary member.
The only difference between Shoal Creek and Augusta National
is muscle. In 1990, Shoal Creek feared both financial loss and a damaged
reputation. Augusta did a simple calculation based upon the immense wealth of
their brand and decided to weather what in the end was merely a bothersome
squall of adverse of public opinion.
But know this:
Had Martha Burk stayed silent in 2002, today poor Condi Rice
would probably be teeing it up at her local muny. The truth is Martha Burk started the very process Marcia Chambers now says she
delayed.
Augusta National is a singularly magnificent golf course.
Its co-founder, one of the great gentleman of sport this country has even
known. But, its history is always complex and sometimes conflicted.
