{"id":894,"date":"2014-09-22T07:43:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T12:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/?p=894"},"modified":"2014-09-22T18:08:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T23:08:05","slug":"r-amp-a-vote-proves-a-bit-of-blether","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/golf\/personalities\/894\/r-amp-a-vote-proves-a-bit-of-blether","title":{"rendered":"R & A Vote Proves A Bit Of Blether"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Carr Golf Travel<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or as we Yanks would say, blather.<\/p>\n

Both of last Thursday\u2019s referendums in Scotland were one-sided affairs. But at least the one pertaining to national independence qualified as an uplifting display of democracy in action, whatever you think of the outcome. The best thing to be said about the Royal & Ancient Golf Club\u2019s vote to allow women members is that we can finally stop talking about it.<\/p>\n

For the record, I lined up with the guys in the Augusta National \/ Martha Burk installment of the males-only controversy, but that was more because of the food-fight nature of the \u201cdiscussion.\u201d Even then, it was understood that the membership would eventually include women.<\/p>\n

So while it\u2019s never too late to \u201cget it right\u201d \u2013 in this month\u2019s parlance \u2013 doing so at this point in the game inevitably betrays a certain willful detachment from commonly held standards (as the NFL is learning). This, despite the fact that the final resolution \u2013 having women members — is nowadays beyond dispute.<\/p>\n

In our eagerness to bolster participation in golf, some have predicted that the R & A\u2019s gesture, however symbolic, will instigate a surge in women\u2019s play. I sure hope so, but the analysis doesn\u2019t ring true: Working women and mothers already understand that they have as little in common with whomever the first female R & A members turn out to be as working-stiff guys have with Sandy Weill.<\/p>\n

As Pam Swensen, CEO of the Executive Women\u2019s Golf Association, so aptly (if inadvertently) put it: \u201cThe significance of women to the future of this game cannot be underestimated.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s OK, Pam, we know what you meant. The R & A\u2019s landslide acceptance of women members is unquestionably a positive development. That it took place in 2014 suggests how easy it is for us to turn matters of \u201cprinciple\u201d into \u2013 pardon the vulgarity; it’s a guy thing \u2013 pissing contests.<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Or as we Yanks would say, blather. Both of last Thursday\u2019s referendums in Scotland were one-sided affairs. But at… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,7],"tags":[112174,28,648123,980420,761845,761136,4048],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities","tag-st-andrews-2","tag-scotland","tag-rampa","tag-martha-burke","tag-pam-swensen","tag-ewga","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2014\/09\/st_andrews_clubhouse.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tomharack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}