IBM's CEO puts focus on Augusta's membership

IBM's CEO puts focus on Augusta's membership

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With Masters approaching next week at Augusta National, it bears watching whether golf club, which has only had male members, extends invitation to new female CEO of IBM.

Augusta National Golf Club loves tradition. Observing this one would be unlike any other.

Since the early 80s, the private club has offered its exclusive membership to at least the last four CEOs of IBM. The new boss aint like the old boss. Shes a she, which would make Virginia Rometty the only female member since Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts chartered the good ol boy club in 1933.

Rometty, according to reports, plays golf but infrequently. She prefers scuba diving, a problem because the pond at the 16th hole is a little too shallow for that pursuit. Still, if Augusta National ever wanted to break its glass ceiling, this would be a convenient out. For now, it is staring at the equivalent of a fried egg lie in one of its pristine white bunkers. What to do?

It was then-chairman Hootie Johnson who squashed Martha Burks protest nine years ago, famously swearing that the club would change its membership policies at the point of a bayonet.

ANGC never said it excluded women members, just that it had not, up until then, invited any, which is its right as a private club, and no one is going to tell it what to do. Women are allowed to play at Augusta National, unlike some other clubs that bar them completely, and the clubs charitable donations to golf equally benefit both sexes.

Current chairman Billy Payne has answered all questions concerning membership by saying it is up to the private deliberations of the members. In other words, mind your own business. The club also takes its time in such matters and does not make its membership public.

Rometty isnt saying. And there is no word yet whether a green jacket has been ordered in a Size 14 rather than a 42 Regular.