AUGUSTA NATIONAL Member resigns over female issue

Club officials said it would not change the club's position.
By TIM DAHLBERG
AP SPORTS WRITER
Augusta National Golf Club showed no signs Tuesday of bowing to pressure to allow women to join, even after a former television executive became the first member to defect from the club over the issue.
Former CBS chief executive Thomas H. Wyman leveled a parting shot while resigning from the club where he has been a member for 25 years, calling Augusta National's stand on female members "pigheaded" and saying up to a quarter of the club's 300 members feel the same way he does.
They'll call shots
Augusta National officials took the resignation in stride and said it would not change the club's position that it will decide when to admit women members on its own and that there will be none by the Masters tournament in April.
"We are disappointed that Mr. Wyman has chosen to publicize a private matter," club spokesman Glenn Greenspan said. "While we respect the fact that there are differences of opinion on this issue, we intend to stand firm behind our right to make what are both appropriate and private membership choices."
Wyman, who could not be reached Tuesday despite repeated attempts, submitted his resignation in a Nov. 27 letter to club chairman Hootie Johnson in which he said he hoped other members would also speak out.
"There are obviously some redneck, old-boy types down there, but there are a lot of very thoughtful, rational people in the membership and they feel as strongly as I do," Wyman told The New York Times.
Several Augusta National members, under pressure by the National Council of Women's Organizations, have publicly said they favored admitting women and would work inside the club toward that goal.
Wyman's resignation, however, is believed to be the first time a member of the intensely private and exclusive club that hosts golf's premier tournament has quit over the issue.
An Associated Press poll conducted Nov. 22-26 found Americans evenly split on the issue, with 46 percent of respondents saying the club has a right to have an all-male membership and the same percentage said a club holding such a prestigious tournament should have female members.
"For that gentleman to resign his membership, that's his opinion, that's his entitlement," Woods said Tuesday.
"It was his choice, and he felt very strongly in doing so.
"You have to admire that for what he did. He didn't have to do that, but he certainly believed that what he did was the right thing for him," he said.