Augusta National is now a famed golf course.

Augusta National Golf Club has always been well known and a place for the elite to gather. It was built within one year and the Masters Tournament began being held there less than three years later. The city of Augusta, Georgia will never be the same and has prospered in ways that would not have been possible without the course. When golfers buy golf clubs they want to know what the pros as The Master's are using.  When they try to buy passes to the tournament they sometimes wait years for their chance to attend.  It doesn't matter if it is golf equipment reviews or some other small article, if it mentions Augusta National then people are reading it.  The success that this course and tournament has enjoyed is truly fantastic.  No other place has earned that kind of spot in golf's history.

All of the wealthiest and most prestigious golfers must share the same golf tips with each other.  They obviously include membership in Augusta National Golf Club.  Even Presidents of the United States know this secret. Dwight D. Eisenhower loved the eastern Georgia course and was known to play there often during the years of his presidency.  In fact, the course has become so popular and exalted that home owners in the surrounding area have found themselves faced with exorbitant tax increases because of the nearness to the famed course. They now have dilemmas of whether or not to sell and get out or try to hang on through their final days.   

Martha Burk isn't concerned with finding a golf training aid for her golf game since she doesn't actually have a golf game.  Ms. Burk doesn't play the sport.  Why then would she be concerned with whether or not Augusta National Golf Club allows women as members? She claims that the fame of the Masters Tournament has transformed the club into a public entity and that they should not be allowed to discriminate. Although Augusta National is not alone in it's all male status, it is certainly the most well known of the twenty-four clubs nationwide that are exclusionary in their status. 

The conflict with Martha Burk is hardly the first fight that Augusta National Golf Club has seen.  There have been lots of nasty stories and rumors floating around about the exclusive club.  But Augusta National has been able to weather many storms and will continue to do so in the future.  One of the reasons is that they are firmly established within the culture of golf.  Removing the course or The Master's Tournament from the PGA tour schedule would be akin to blasphemy and will probably never happen in this lifetime.  Even the Great Depression was unable to crush the conquering spirit that this course and club has.

Marion Hollins, a fabulous golfer in the early 1900s, formed the Womens National Golf Club on Long Island, New York, in 1923.  One of the things that this golf club had in common with Augusta National Golf club in Augusta, GA, was that it was tally entirely by wealthy people, namely women, and it was attractive for the socially elite women of the east coast.  It also was exclusionary of the opposite gender in that m en were most certainly denied membership and were allowed to play the exclusive golf course only as a guest of a female member.  For eighteen years this golf club was strong and healthy, but was unlike Augusta National in that it was not able to survive through the hard times that the Great Depression provided. 

One wonders what Marion Hollins, a woman with an exceptional golf swing , would have to say about Augusta National Golf Clubs refusal to admit women members.  Ms. Hollins was the mastermind behind Pastiempo Estates, which boasts one of the most historic golf courses in the United States, and some suppose she is the link between Bobby Jones and Allister McKenzie.  Jones and McKenzie ran into each other at her Estates and then later went on to create and mold Augustas course together.  Hollins was an entrepreneur, a risk taking investor and above all a committed and enthused golfer.