The 18th green at Muirfield: spot the women. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty ImagesThe event that ought to display Scotland in all its summer glory is instead now regularly, and seriously, embarrassing this country. The 142nd Open golf championship commences on 18 July at Muirfield, home to the self-styled Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. It is an institution that does not permit women to become members.
This would be far less troubling if it were merely the usual sort of golf club that operates in Scotland: a wilting country and western club for sclerotic and desiccated men and the sort of people who like to wear blazers in broad daylight.
It is a place to which a certain type of chap goes for entertainment on a Saturday evening, but only because no one looks twice at the urine stains on the light grey flannelled trousers they all seem to wear. As such, we could leave it quietly to go about its business, letting daft old men snore away in a red leather upholstered corner as they sleep off the lunchtime spotted dick and custard.
Muirfield, though, is one of our finest links courses and a regular host of this, the greatest golf tournament on Earth. By allowing this club to host the Open regularly Scotland tells the world that a significant part of it remains backward and ridiculous. We permit Muirfield to be Scotland for a week or so and thus we tell the world that we treat women like second-class citizens.
Muirfield is not alone in its cretinous, anti-women policy. Two other clubs that host the Open – Royal Troon and the R&A at St Andrews – similarly refuse to allow women to join their organisations. The people who run these outfits insist that they do not break equality laws as they are private members clubs that allow black people to use their facilities, but only if they are accompanied by white people.
Oh, I do beg your pardon, my mistake… of course they don't discriminate against black people or Muslims or Catholics as there would be a national outcry if they did and a way would be found to shut them down quicker than you could shout pink Pringle sweater. And anyway, what sort of man wants to join a club where there are no women?
We are also told that there exist dozens of women-only clubs in Scotland to cater for "the ladies". These, though, possess few of the challenges and little of the splendour of many of the male-only clubs. The fact remains that if you are a woman who takes golf seriously you are barred from holding membership at some of Scotland's best courses.
Scotland is pock-marked by scores of these clubs that refuse to allow women to be members and occupy land that, more often than not, could be put to better use as allotments. My own two sons are members of one and that is why I found myself marooned in the middle of a green wasteland just the other Sunday, forlornly trying to catch up with them as they battled it out in their annual club championship.
Obviously I could never endure an entire 18-hole round and so I ventured out at a time when I thought they might be a considerable way through the contest. As they were heading down the back nine, though, I was scrabbling about trying to catch them up somewhere on the front nine (or vice versa). Dusk was falling on the south side of Glasgow when the search party picked me up looking like a vagrant hunting for lost golf balls to sell back to the chaps.
Golfing's demimonde will descend on Scotland's east coast next week and thus it will become a no-go area for normal people. I've had several family holidays in St Andrews almost ruined when we realised too late that this otherwise beautiful town was hosting the Open that year. It's not just the delinquent yellow, pink and blue leisurewear that was once the sole preserve of the cast in a Cliff Richard film, or even the infernal ubiquity of their silly baseball caps.
It's the odious and fawning way that golf people conduct themselves in the presence of the professional players or the R&A officials, who all seem to resemble the male staff of Grace Brothers in Are You Being Served?. Golfing society is more deferential than the Queen's garden party.
Recently, Alex Salmond made a stand (of sorts) when he refused his annual invitation to the Open. Mr Salmond, himself a very enthusiastic golfer, simply stated that his conscience could not allow him to attend an event being hosted by such a sexist organisation. The first minister's admirable stance was somewhat undermined, though, when it emerged that the government would otherwise be represented by the tourism minister.
If civic Scotland was as serious about sexism as it is about equality in the workplace or ensuring that there is no discrimination against gay people, a way would be found to bring Muirfield and its ilk to heel or shut them down. MSPs and local councillors belonging to each of Scotland's three main liberal political parties are to be found on the membership lists of sexist golf clubs. These parties should simply outlaw membership of these clubs in the same way that they might outlaw membership of an extreme far-right organisation.
Local councils should seek to do likewise and use Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex language, religion, political or other opinion…"
Our government must withdraw all funding and support for the R&A in its schemes to deliver golf to young people. Nor should government ministers, who are supposed to represent us all, be sharing platforms in the run-up to the Ryder Cup next year with officials who see nothing wrong with awarding golf tournaments and all the prestige that goes with them to clubs that refuse to treat women as equals.
Muirfield shames this country. Equally shameful, though, is how successive liberal administrations in post-devolution Scotland turn a blind eye.
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