Brian Viner: Augusta's men need answer only to their own

Augusta, Georgia, is plumb in the heart of the American Bible Belt, and so there will consequently be locals who believe that the dreadful weather which wrought such havoc upon the 67th US Masters was simply a manifestation of the Almighty's wrath over the Augusta National's refusal to accept women members.

Which must be hellish confusing for them, because those Southern bible-thumpers are a reactionary and often dogmatically literal bunch, who also believe that, if God created Adam first, then He clearly meant the male of the species to hold the whip hand.

At any rate, Augusta is not the place to tell the old joke about the venerable Southern gentleman who lives his life according to firm principles of racism and misogyny, yet is a pillar of the local community and gives lots of moolah to the Baptist church. When he dies, and applies at the Pearly Gates for admission to the Kingdom of Heaven, St Peter checks his list and conveys the welcome news that he is expected. "But before you go in," he says, "there's just one thing I should tell you about God." "And what," says the old Southern gentleman, "maht thaht be?" St Peter smiles. "She's black," he says.

That old joke, it occurs to me, could be twisted to apply to the Augusta National itself, perhaps with the current chairman, "Hootie" Johnson, consulting a soothsayer who looks 50 years into the future and tells him that there is one thing he ought to know about the next chairman but three.

Of course, on discovering she was black he would doubtless be less surprised to find a person of different colour in the job – Augusta having already admitted African-American members – than a person of different gender.

But I confess to being on Hootie Johnson's side on this issue. There are countless institutions in American life from which women are barred either by rules or by custom; just take the presidency and work down. He doesn't see, and nor do I, why a golf club, even one so celebrated as Augusta, should be singled out for intimidation. It's a private club, with its own constitution, and the fact that it hosts a major golf tournament every April doesn't change that. I don't understand why people – though not most level-headed women I know, who calmly take the Groucho Marx approach to the whole business – are getting so hot under their collars.

Removing the Marylebone Cricket Club's all-male exclusivity was different. The MCC has a practical as well as symbolic role at the heart of world cricket, and the exclusion of women had become impossible to justify. I believe the same to be true of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, an all-male anachronism in a sport enriched by women from the time of Joyce Wethered to the time of Annika Sorenstam. But the Augusta National, unlike the MCC and the R&A, is not at the epicentre of a global game. It need be answerable to nobody but its own members, and, if it wants those members to be men, so be it. Even in the sporting arena there are surely more important things to campaign for, and against.

In any case, one of the most powerful people at the Masters, for years and years, was a woman, who ruled the press centre not just with a rod of iron, but with thumb-screws. Her name was Martha, just as her successor is called Martha and the woman orchestrating the sexism furore is called Martha. If you are female and wish to make a name for yourself at the Augusta National, then clearly it helps if that name is Martha.

As for the Martha I knew, I wish she'd stayed in her vineyard. The modern incarnation of Cerberus the three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades, she was probably not remotely bothered that she lacked the testicles to be a member. It certainly didn't stop her kicking errant males in theirs, figuratively speaking. In 1986 a callow young man of 24, attending his first Masters, was guilty of a minor indiscretion which she not only spotted, but came down on him for like a ton of grits. He was made to apologise to the tournament director, and to feel as if he was at fault for Watergate and Pearl Harbor too. I should know. I was that callow young man.

Still, looking back with middle-aged wisdom, I see that I foolishly under-estimated the rigour with which the Masters is so brilliantly run.

Hootie Johnson has continued that proud tradition, and I admire him for standing up to the forces of political correctness. If only he had similarly stood up to the forces of sentimentality, and stuck by the decision to exclude the golden oldies. On Friday the 1973 champ Tommy Aaron threaded his way through the dogwoods in 92 strokes, while Arnold Palmer recorded a pair of 83s. Justin Rose was dribbling rusks when Arnie last made the cut, and it looks, alas, as if Arnie himself will be dribbling rusks before he decides to call it a day.

b.viner@independent.co.uk