The Master’s Golf Tournament cranks up today and, almost on cue, Martha Burk is railing against the capitalist roaders wasting money on such nonsense. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal ($), Ms. Burk asserts that corporate sponsorship of a rich man’s club that does not allow women members is only part of the good ol’ boys network that prevents an equal number of women from becoming members of corporate boards:

Augusta National Golf Club, which openly and proudly discriminates against women, will produce its Masters Golf Tournament with considerable help from the masters of corporate America. After two years without sponsors, the tournament will again be underwritten — by stockholders and customers of IBM, SBC and ExxonMobil. The companies will spend between $7 million and $12 million for the privilege of sharing four commercial minutes per hour on the air. Even so, CBS will lose money on the broadcast, giving its stockholders — male and female alike — the opportunity to pick up the slack.
With the return of corporate sponsorships, there will no doubt be a return of corporate entertainment. Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and others will spend up to a million dollars apiece on lavish meals, liquor, housing, transportation, and gifts to customers. And that doesn’t count hidden overhead expenses such as use of the company plane, staff time, and cash-only “all-night entertainment services.”
It’s hard to imagine this kind of corporate involvement with a club that flaunted its race discrimination. In a parallel situation in 1990, when the subject was exclusion of blacks at the Alabama club hosting the PGA Championship, IBM pulled its sponsorship with the statement: “Supporting even indirectly activities which are exclusionary is against IBM’s practices and policies.” Yet because the subject is now gender discrimination, IBM repudiates these selfsame policies, and other corporate lemmings follow suit. If it’s good enough for Big Blue, why not?
The harm to stockholders pales beside the harm to working women. If the largest companies can send the message that sex discrimination is acceptable, it has a legitimizing effect that goes far beyond Augusta. It trickles down to frontline management, it permeates the culture, and it stifles women’s progress. If women were fully represented on corporate boards, it is doubtful they would approve company entertainment at places that keep females out, or nominate new board members who condone sex discrimination by belonging to such clubs. But females constitute only 10% of boards in the Fortune 500.
Why?

Well, maybe because of the good ol’ boy network, which happens to be the focus of Ms. Burk’s new book, Cult of Power, published this week by Scribner. But I’m sure that Ms. Burk would not use the purity of her criticism regarding corporate support for Augusta National Golf Club to promote her new book.
Apparently, Ms. Burk has a policy of advocating rather odd views. Apart from the dubious notion that a corporation’s support for a popular golf tournament means that it is supporting a golf club’s policy of discriminating against women, Ms. Burk’s argument fails to acknowledge that wealthy businessmen — as well as strident women — have the right in America to associate in a private organization with whomever they want. Those of us not in the organization may not like it, but about the time that we start advocating that the government do something about the club excluding people like us, we better start worrying about what else that a government so empowered can do. And believe me, a government so empowered can generate much greater injustice to women than anything Augusta National can do.
By the way, The Master’s website has a pop-up screen that allows you to watch players on the practice tee hitting balls while warming up and on a couple of holes on the course. Check it out. That is, if you can tolerate using the website of a club comprised of a bunch of rich, white guys.