How Augusta National Mastered Cancel Culture

How Augusta National Mastered Cancel Culture

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“As outrage over [Georgia’s election] law built this week, not everyone was as willing to go on the record with their [sic] next move.” So wrote New York Times sports columnist Joe Drape on April 2. Chief among those failing to acknowledge the media’s faux outrage was the Augusta National Golf Club, the host of the Masters golf tournament. “Representatives for the Masters golf tournament across the state in Augusta did not return phone calls or email messages,” Drape huffed. If Drape knew his history, he could not have expected them to.

In 2003, the mavens of cancel culture took their best shot at the Masters and shanked it, a story well told in Alan Shipnuck’s book The Battle for Augusta National: Hootie, Martha, and the Masters of the Universe. The effort had begun four years earlier when sportswriter Christine Brennan began badgering William Woodward “Hootie” Johnson, the club member responsible for overseeing the tournament, about the absence of female members.

In 2002, on the lookout for a fresh angle, Brennan decided to “out” the club’s black members and shame them into quitting the club. When that strategy didn’t pan out, she followed up with a column. “In golf,” she wrote, “there are two kinds of discrimination: There is acceptable discrimination and then there is unacceptable discrimination.”

Martha Burk, a committed feminist and chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), read Brennan’s column and decided it was time to take Augusta National down. “Hootie Johnson,” she told her colleagues while mocking Johnson’s drawl, “ah’m a-gonna wraaaht yew uh letter.

Last Edited by beeches on 04/06/2021 06:20 AM