Following no vote on women, Muirfield out of British Open rotation
By JK Long
Muirfield votes to keep women out, loses British Open rotation
The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers of the Muirfield Golf Club voted this week on ending the club’s 244-year history of excluding female members, but came up just a few votes short. The vote means that Murifield is no longer eligible to host the British Open, (known worldwide as the Open Championship) which it has done 16 times in its illustrious history, the last in 2013.
The vote by the all male membership required a two-thirds majority to make the change. When the votes were all tallied, 64 percent of the 648 voting members voted in favor of admitting female members, falling two percent short of the votes needed to make the historic change.
The push for adding female members to the exclusive club was part of two year movement, which began soon after Muirfield received heavy worldwide scrutiny during the 2013 British Open for its ban on women. That British Open also came directly on the heels of 2012 decision by Augusta members to admit women for the first time in its history, helping to spur the debate.
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) chief executive Martin Slumbers in a Thursday statement:
"“The R&A has considered today’s decision with respect to the Open Championship. The Open is one of the world’s great sporting events and going forward we will not stage the Championship at a venue that does not admit women as members.”"
The R&A has been slow to adapt to the concept of women and golf: the organization admitted women as members for the first time in 2014, 260 years after it was founded in 1754. Slumbers did say that “If the policy at the club should change we would reconsider Muirfield as a venue for The Open in future.”
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