AMERICA AT LARGE: Hold your hand out, you silly girl See what you've done When you find yourself in the thick of it Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you Silly girl. - Lennon and McCartney, Martha, My Dear I don't know anything about golf. - Martha Burk.
The question for today is, or ought to be, how much did Martha have to pay JJ Harper to line up on Hootie's side? Martha Burk is the chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organisations, who has engaged in a six-month wrestling match with Augusta National Golf Club and its none-too-bright chairman Hootie Johnson. When the ceremonial first drive is struck at the US Masters in five weeks, Burk will presumably be outside the club leading a protest demonstration.
Somewhere not far away, JJ Harper and the lads in the sheets and pointy hoods will be staging a pro-Hootie counter-demonstration of their own. Harper is the Grand Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and trust me, Hootie wants the Klan around almost as much as Martha would welcome the presence of OJ Simpson in her parade.
The issue at hand, in a nutshell, is that Augusta National doesn't have any lady members, and doesn't want any, figures that will be buried in the circus atmosphere when Burk shows up to bludgeon the overmatched Hootie. It could be Sunday morning before anybody realises Tiger Woods is going after an unprecedented third consecutive green jacket. There are ample arguments that Burk's self-serving campaign is as off-target as her reasoning is specious, but matters have reached the point anyone attempting to temper the discourse with logic risks being accused of aligning with the Klan.
In a speech in San Diego two days ago, Burk proclaimed herself a disciple of what she described as the "Lyndon Johnson School of Etiquette", in announcing her intention to "kick some ass and take some names". Her refined position is that since the Masters is nationally broadcast, sells merchandise throughout the land, holds a liquor licence, and employs local law enforcement officers, it has forfeited its right to be considered a private club. After listening to Burk's fuzzy-minded speech on Tuesday, San Diego union-leader columnist Tim Sullivan found himself puzzled.
"Perhaps some judge would buy such a brief, but it's hard to see how a private club forfeits its year-round autonomy by holding an annual four-day tournament. If a convent holds a bake sale big enough to warrant a police presence, does it somehow follow that the nuns consequently must admit men to their cloister?"
"Augusta can't win this fight," the introspective PGA PRO Paul Goydos observed last fall. "Some day they're going to let a woman into the club. It can be tomorrow, next year or in 10 years. And whenever that day comes, Martha Burk is going to declare victory, whether the club was planning on admitting a woman before she got involved or not."
Once Burk turned up the volume on her protest campaign, a trickle of club resignations resulted. Then Hootie Johnson, who had said he would not be pressured "at the point of a bayonet", announced that the 2003 Masters would be televised commercial-free. In doing so, Hootie removed a big weapon from Burk's quiver. Had she and her group been able to pressure advertisers there might have been significant corporate defections.
Taking commercials out of the television equation might have been a brilliant stroke, but it is most assuredly a once-off phenomenon. It's a bit like a bank attempting to lure new customers by giving away free money. It can only be effective on a short-term basis.
All of which puts CBS in a most interesting light. The relationship between Augusta National and the network which televises it is unlike any other in sports, in that the subject calls the tune and retains an iron-clad grasp on editorial control. Over the years this unique arrangement has cost at least two TV commentators their jobs. One of Hootie's predecessors, Augusta National co-founder Clifford Roberts, objected to presenter Jack Whitaker referring to Masters spectators as a "mob," and Whitaker hasn't been on camera from Augusta since. And when broadcaster (and sometime touring pro) Gary McCord said of Augusta's slippery greens they appeared to have been treated "with bikini wax", that was considered so salacious Masters officials banned McCord from future tournament telecasts.
CBS will cover the commercial-free tournament, but how will they cover Burk's protests, or for that matter, the Klan's? Or will they at all? Burk, for one, thinks not.
Any demonstrations will take place off the club property, and perhaps entirely outside the jurisdiction of the Augusta constabulary. The sheriff's department in surrounding Richmond County is entertaining requests for protest permits, but so far the National Coalition of Women's Organisations hasn't asked for one.
Officially, permits have been requested by the Ku Klux Klan, a Tampa man named Todd Manzi who is backing the Augusta club's position, by the Rev Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH coalition, and by a woman named Allison Greene, who has formed a group called WAMB, which stand for "Women Against Martha Burk".
There is reason to speculate Burk and her followers may try to up the ante by demonstrating without a permit. If she could somehow manage to persuade the Augusta cops to wade in and start arresting people in the time-honoured tradition of the Deep South it would be from her standpoint a dream come true: think dogs, and water cannons, and bodies being dragged away as Klansmen cheer. Tiger Woods will be lucky to get on television at all.
