The first female principal of St Andrews University has broken her silence on the Royal and Ancient Golf Club’s all-male membership policy and accused club members of taunting her.
Louise Richardson, appointed in 2009, has previously refused to comment on not being made an honorary member of the all-male club, as was the case with the two men who preceded her in the post of head of Scotland’s oldest university.
However as the club prepares to vote on admitting women members on September 18, Ms Richardson, an American, has spoken out in an interview given to the New York Times.
In it, she admits she did not challenge the “anachronistic” policy of the R&A when she took up her chair at St Andrews because she did not want it to become an issue.
“I, being kind of a professional and a pragmatist, said, ‘Oh, we can work something out; this is silly’,” she told Karen Crouse of the NYT. “But little did I know.”
Ms Richardson has consistently refused interviews on the subject with the media in the UK, which led many to assume she was not concerned about the club’s policy as she was not a golfer.
However, as the article reveals, she has played golf since she was a young girl, and the club’s all-male policy has made her job difficult.
“The last thing I want to do is sound strident about this because on my list of concerns, it’s not high up there, and yet it’s tough when you think about it,” she said.
“Here’s St Andrews University, ranked third in the UK, we’re an organisation of 10,000 people, we support 9,000 jobs, I run this place very successfully, and I’m not allowed in the clubhouse 600 yards from my house?”
There have been situations where the club and university’s interests have involved her mixing with members at functions, which on occasion involved club members “waving their ties in her face”, she adds, “to draw my attention, as they think that’s funny”.
“Once or twice, female professors have seen me in situations where I’m surrounded by men wearing their R&A ties, and they get really upset and offended for me,” she adds in the article.
The difficulty of the relationship mostly manifests itself in Ms Richardson being unable to take university benefactors to the R&A clubhouse if they request it.
“If a supporter of the university wants to have lunch in the R&A clubhouse I have to get someone I know to take them when I should be cultivating that relationship,” she adds.