MULLIGAN MULLIGAN


The Independent Voice The nonsense that has gone on at


Muirfield, not just this month but for more than a century, has at last been exposed in all its ugliness. There will of course be a way back to the Open Championship rota for the so called Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers because, like the MCC a few years ago, they will hastily arrange another ballot and the vote to admit women members will be carried. No doubt, the Scottish club’s membership is bitterly divided over the issue at present and those voting for the status quo will increasingly come under pressure from their more enlightened (perhaps pragmatic is the better word) brethren. Vilification and ridicule from within the


ranks will eventually persuade a significant percentage of the 219 gainsayers to fall in line with their captain and committee’s recommendations. And those ‘no’ voters who pretend they


are guardians of tradition should remember that one of the reasons their magnificent links actually came into being was to stage the 1892 Open. They should also reflect on their


preposterous rule that any change to the club’s rubric must attract two thirds of the members’ votes. If that principle applied to politics, governing the country would be impossible because no General Election has ever given one party a mandate on such a scale. And as for the forthcoming Brexit vote, which could swing either way and will shape our lives for decades to come – that would be utterly pointless. But these are secondary issues


compared to the damage that has been


inflicted on the game as a whole. Imagine how Doug Poole, who has worked tirelessly to turn National Golf Month from pipedream to reality, must feel about all the adverse publicity. His attempts and those by thousands of helpers (golf’s real Honourable Company) to tell the outside world that ours is a friendly, inclusive sport have been torpedoed. So who are these people who value


misogyny above the interests of the game? Well, they’re the people who’ve been in charge for 150 years. And very pleased they are with the privileged niche they created for themselves. Theirs is a feudal world in which professionals are expected to tug forelocks while caddies, clubhouse staff and greenkeepers are systematically treated like scum. A century or so ago, a self-appointed


officer class hijacked the game in a quest to perpetuate the authority they enjoyed during earlier military careers. Fortunately, with Parliament now taking


a keen interest, power is shiſting to clubs, officials and people who are committed to the common cause of ensuring golf remains viable and grows. For that process to continue, though, a


governance structure that fits in with the modern world is necessary. Then the curtain can come down at last on the ugly, authoritarian anachronisms that have postured for so long in the British golf establishment as unimpeachable hierarchies.


Happy Hacking! Mulligan


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