Those fair-minded male golfers who leaped for joy when the Minister for Justice signed the Equal Status Act 2000 into law last week, will be horrified at the latest news from Boston. It seems that, despite the unstinting generosity of the male members of the Haverhill Country Club to their golfing sisters, the response has been nothing but bitter complaints.

According to Scott Gleason, president of the club, there was no question of women's competitions being shunted to less favourable days of the week. "They choose," he insisted. "If they want to have a tournament on Saturday and Sunday, fine. They can play whoever they want, whenever they want."

All of which prompted bafflement as to why he was being compelled to outline such munificence before a superior court judge. And it would be equally difficult to understand how the ungrateful women members of Haverhill could ever have seen fit to file a sex discrimination lawsuit against such amenable colleagues back in 1995.

Worst of all, it beggars belief that, 12 months ago, a jury of their peers could have found the men guilty of discrimination against women in their "rules and practice". In the event, the club were back in court last weekend to answer an accusation that they continued to flout the law on discrimination, a year after being ordered to pay almost $2 million to nine women plaintiffs.