Evolution at Augusta


AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The green jacketed members of Augusta National Golf Club are widely perceived as the last members of the Flat Earth Society, stubborn dinosaurs who will ensure that it remains 1955 behind the gates.

It's not as if this is entirely a bad thing.

Unlike most major sporting events, you can feed a family of four without taking out a second mortgage. The cost of the delicious egg salad and pimento cheese sandwiches served hermetically sealed in Masters green wrappers has held firm at pre-Cold War prices.

As much as some club members may cling to the past with a white-knuckle grip akin to the Ranger chokehold, it's not entirely representative of the breed. In years past, the pre-tournament conversation often covered practices by the club that are deemed exclusionary. This year, chairman Billy Payne is being hailed as a visionary.

For the first time ever, the Par-3 Tournament will be televised. And ESPN cameras will be on the course to provide live coverage rather than simply provided the highlights that served as the backdrop for Stuart Scott’s Boo-Yeahs. There have been changes to the tournament's Web site, Masters.org, including streaming video and blogs.

Children 8-16 will also get in free from Thursday-Sunday, provided they are escorted by an adult with a tournament badge because, as Payne said, Augusta National wants to ''expose the game to a more youthful audience to communicate to them that golf is fun, it is family.''

So, for this week, females ages 8-16 will get to tread upon the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. However, they won't be able to join as adults for the forseeable future.

‘‘I don't talk about membership issues,’’ Payne said Wednesday morning, during his state of the tournament address. "That's reserved for the private deliberations of the members. Other than that, I'm not going to talk about it.''

In other words, Augusta National has embraced the technology of the 21st Century but not the sociology.