It would be quite easy to be beguiled by Peter Dawson’s magnificent office in the R&A clubhouse at St Andrews. It certainly the best office in golf, and has a good shout to be the finest anywhere.
There’s a balcony sitting directly above the first tee of the Old Course, with the obvious panoramic view. Inside, it’s airy and spacious, and there are three or four historic maps of the Old Course, including the one drawn up by none other than Alister Mackenzie, the designer of Augusta, Cypress Point and other classics, who surveyed the links for the R&A in the 1920s.
One shudders to think what golf memorabilia enthusiasts would pay for this unique treasure. Well into six figures, probably.
The sole concession to modernity are the newish windows the old ones made it a sauna in summer and the huge flatscreen TV, the only thing in the office that looks slightly incongruous.
Concessions to modernity, of course, are done exceptionally slowly in the rarified world of the R&A. The chief executive’s main reason for calling the press into the inner sanctum of golf’s most famous organisation was, quite clearly, to try and head off a testing debate about single-sex golf clubs, including the one that employs him.
On Monday is the Open Championship Media Day at Muirfield, where the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers remain strictly all-male. The equality debate was sure to surface there, and Dawson wanted to get his point of view over first.
There’s nothing really wrong with that, there will be plenty other things to discuss at Muirfield. In addition, Dawson is entitled to have his and R&A’s view of single-sex clubs aired, and they are concerned the old myths being trotted out about signs stating “Dogs on Leash No Women” or the Queen being paid homage at the gates of Muirfield but not being allowed in.
A reasoned debate on this subject benefits all. So let’s have one.
My issue is not with Muirfield, with Royal Troon or with Royal St George’s, the other all-male clubs on the Open rota who operate perfectly legally. Nor is it with the clubs Dawson says wish steadfastly to stay single-sex, for example the St Andrews and New Clubs, and the ladies’ St Rule and St Regulus clubs at the links they share with the R&A.
But the R&A, whether he or its members like it or not, and no matter whether its governing duties were separated from the club legally in 2004, is different. It stands for something broader, something profound and symbolic within the world of golf.
It governs the game the majority of committees that run golf day-to-day are stacked with R&A men and it has an ethical duty to be representative, which it can’t possibly be in its current form.
In the hour-long discussion with Dawson and the press last week there was much talk of perception. The chief executive doesn’t think it is a problem and he insists that no harm is caused by single-sex clubs.
While conceding that there is a “direction of travel” and “change in temperature” soundbites he left in the air as a sort of hint that the R&A will probably admit women members at some far-off point he suggested that the ladies clubs at St Andrews would be upset if the R&A admitted women members.
Really? If the R&A gave an honorary membership, as they have done to distinguished players throughout the club’s history, to Annika Sorenstam, or Catriona Matthew, or Carole Semple Thompson or Belle Robertson, how could anyone really be offended?
Would doing that be tokenistic? Maybe, even probably. Augusta National have been accused of that for admitting two women members. But like there, once the step had been taken, there would be no turning back.
And the damaging perception of misogyny that brings golf into disrepute worldwide would finally be ended.