Tag Archives: Augusta National

Women at Augusta: Did Masters press conference finally get Payne to change mind?

Posted on by

Charlie Hanger, executive editor of Golf.com, had this observation on Golf.com’s PGA Tour Confidential:

My first thought was, finally. Payne seemed genuinely flustered with the  harsh questioning this year, and I wonder if behind closed doors that led him to  push for the change. The issue was clearly not going away, so they really didn’t  have much of a choice.

I went to ASAPsports.com and reviewed the press conference Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne conducted on the Wednesday of tournament week. Indeed, he was pressed as hard on the women’s issue as he had been in years.

Here are some of the exchanges. The first mention came on the third question.

Q.  You began talking about a number of the changes that happened here at the course.  Since you’ve been Chairman, all of those changes have been well‑documented.  One of the changes that has not happened to the Club is the all‑male Membership.  Wonder if you ever foresee that changing, and why or why not.

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Well, as has been the case, whenever that question is asked, all issues of Membership are now and have been historically subject to the private deliberations of the Members, and that statement remains accurate and remains my statement.

That always has been the Augusta chairman’s standard statement. But it didn’t stop there.

Is it possible to elaborate further on why Membership for (IBM CEO Virginia) Rometty wouldn’t be considered, just to give us a little more spiel on that.

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  I guess two reasons:  One, we don’t talk about our private deliberations.  No. 2, we especially don’t talk about it when a named candidate is a part of the question.

Here’s where it starts to get interesting. Payne starts to feel the heat a few moments later:

Q.  Mr.Chairman, I note your concerns about the growth of golf around the world, and I also note that Augusta National is a very famous golf club.  Don’t you think it would send a wonderful message to young girls around the world if they knew that one day they could join this very famous golf club?

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Once again, that deals with a Membership issue, and I’m not going to answer it.

Q.  No, it doesn’t.

Q.  Seems like a mixed message, Billy, is what he’s saying.  You’re throwing a lot of money into growing the game, and yet there’s still a perception that certain people are excluded.

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  That is a Membership issue that I’m not going to‑‑ thank you for your‑‑

Q.  It sends‑‑

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Thank you.

Q.  It sends a wonderful message to girls around the world that they could join this emblematic golf club; it’s not a Membership question.

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Thank you for your question, sir.

Q.  Mr.Chairman, as a grandfather, what would you say to granddaughters?  How would you explain leading a club that does not include female membership?

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Once again, though expressed quite artfully, I think that’s a question that deals with Membership, and‑‑

Q.  It’s a kitchen‑table, personal question.

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  Well, my conversations with my granddaughters are also personal.  (Laughter.)

Q.  Billy, kind of on that note, you talked about what a great Masters it was last year and how much anticipation there is coming into this year’s Masters.  I’m curious how you felt when this issue comes up again on the eve of the Masters, and do you feel it reflects negatively on either the Club or the Tournament?

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  I think there’s certainly a difference of opinion on that, and I don’t think I have formed an opinion on that, Doug.  But certainly there’s ‑‑ people have different opinions on that subject.

Ah, the old grandfather end-run ploy. Even Payne appreciated that tactic.

Finally, Payne and the moderator Craig Heatley had enough.

Q.  You said your conversations with your granddaughters are private.  What would you suggest I tell my daughters?

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  I don’t know your daughters.

Q.  What without them, that the most prestigious golf club in the country, they are not‑‑

CHAIRMAN PAYNE:  I have no advice for you there, sir.

CRAIG HEATLEY:  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

Now it would be foolish to think Payne made this decision simply because of tough questioning. However, I do believe the press conference had an impact.

I think Payne has wanted to make this move for quite some time only to be rebuffed by the hardliners at the club. Perhaps, he got tired of having to be on the firing line for an issue he didn’t support. Who knows? Maybe the grandfather questions did finally get to him. Indeed, what kind of message was he sending to his granddaughters?

Whatever the reason, Payne likely will be thrilled not to face another Masters press conference where he has to be battered about the women issue.

 

 

Interview with Furman Bisher: Columnists were the voice

Posted on by

I know I’m a little late with this, but I wanted to weigh in with a tribute to Furman Bisher.

I think Furman would have been overwhelmed by all the thousands of words written about him.

His good friend Dan Jenkins said: “The  most flattering thing I used to say about his work was, ‘He’s the Red Smith  of the South.’

I loved this passage from another one of his good friends, Dave Kindred:

 One time, two years ago, his glorious wife, Linda, called him in the Augusta  press room and Furman became a high school kid in love. “I just finished,  honey,” he said. “It wasn’t much. I keep trying. I’ll do that perfect column  someday.”

Furman never stopped trying until the day he died on March 18 at the age of 93. I got to know the legendary Atlanta columnist during my years covering golf. He was kind, giving and feisty in a charming way.

When he died, I knew I wanted one of my first posts to be a tribute to him. What better way to do it than through his own words.

During the 2008 Masters, I conducted an interview with Furman for a future project. We talked for more than an hour about his career that began in 1938. Here are a few of the excerpts.

In the beginning: I climbed the ladder from the bottom. I started at a little newspaper called the Lumbertown Voice. I was the editor at the age of 20. You can imagine what a smart editor I was. I made $20 a week. I was there for eight months. Then I went to the High Point Enterprise. Did everything under the sun. Covered police beats. Covered the financial markets. On the side, I’d write a little sports every now and then.

Early sports assignment: In Charlotte, I covered the Charlotte Hornets, a Class B team. I traveled a bit with the team. Those were my high moments. Riding the bus mean you were really in there. I’d always go down to the lockerroom and talk to the manager after the game. Nobody ever did that. I just wanted to find out something different from the morning paper. The manager happened to a crusty old coot named Spencer Abbott.

He’d talk out of the side of his mouth. He’d sit and talk until I had what I needed. I learned a lot baseball sitting there.

The next year, he got fired, and they made the second-baseman, who was 22 years old, the manager: Cal Ermer, who went on to manage Twins. Great guy, great person. I went down after the game to talk to him, and he’d said, “Furman, I don’t know what to tell you. Write what you think I might say.’ That’s what I did.

First Masters in 1950: I came through Augusta with the Charlotte Hornets baseball team. I wasn’t assigned to cover the Masters. I just went out and wrote columns on a couple of rounds.

You just walked in, and they were glad to have you. I don’t know that I even got a credential. I don’t remember meeting anybody of authority.

The press room was an army tent down the first fairway. It had a board for the scores. Typewritters on the tables. There were about 8-10 guys in there. That’s where you worked.

If (long-time Nashville columnist) Fred Russell walked in here (Augusta’s massive press center) now, he’d have a heart attack. He’d say, ‘They’re spoiling the hell out of you all.’

On covering Ben Hogan: At first, I was a little shy about approaching Hogan. You could talk to him as long as you asked good questions. He’d give you his time. He was still strung pretty tight in this days. Later on, we got to be pretty good friends. I talked to him when I wrote the book on the Masters. I started to take out my tape recorder and he said, ‘No, I don’t do any tape recordings.’

I have about 5 or 6 letters from him at home. Letters thanking me.  It would be so unusual for an athlete to do that now.

On the power of being a columnist in the pre-ESPN era: Being a columnist meant more. There was no Internet. The sport fan didn’t have sportscenter and ESPN. People are lazy. A lot of people don’t like to read. Now they’d rather sit there and get it through the ears.

It was a great being a columnist back then. Columnists were the voice. People viewed sports through you.  I was in the Sportings News and Saturday Evening Post. It was a little inflating. I used to drive around state of Georgia, get out at a filling station or stop to have a sandwich, and everyone would say, “That’s Furman Bisher.” I’d walk into a stadium and some 10 or 12 year old with his daddy would say, “Hi Furman.” I loved that.

I walk in now and nobody knows me from a side of beef.

His style: My style was to write as I saw it. I didn’t rail about any causes, except I’m against the DH and a lot of these idiotic football rules. What they play now isn’t basketball, it’s court-rassling. I see 10 fouls on a play, and none get called. It’s a form of poorly officiated wrestling.

One regret: I regret one thing about my career: I dealt with fun and games. I’m sorry I didn’t have a more meaningful impact on the world. I’d like to have been an editorial writer. I have solid opinions.

Otherwise, I have no regrets. How can I? I’ve had every break in the world. And I made good money. I’ve (started) scholarships at North Carolina and Furman that my wife and I fund. That sort of salves my dismay at not having been a more politically expressive figure.