This Really Should Be a Private Argument

Jesse Jackson is going to save the sport of golf from “apartheid” by picketing Augusta National during the Masters. Augusta is a private club with a membership from all over the country. It is only open a few months a year. It is not the typical country club to which women have been accepted as full members for years. There is no “business” justification for admitting women, an excuse that has removed the few refuges for men who would like to get away from women for a few hours a day.

Los Angeles Country Club, for many years and maybe to this day, did not accept anyone in the entertainment business for membership. The sole exception was Randolph Scott, who had made most of his money in real estate and who said he could provide sworn affidavits that he was not an actor. He also had a two handicap.

Michael Kennedy

Mission Viejo

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I’m confused about Jesse Jackson’s claim of apartheid at Augusta. I am a white Jewish man who is the son of a woman who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. on Washington and from Selma to Montgomery. She lived under the premise that there was one people with one color. I am convinced she and Rev. King are rolling over in their graves as they watch Mr. Jackson practice his double standards and racism as he perpetuates his sick ideas to further his own personal agenda.

How does Mr. Jackson view the “apartheid” of events and organizations such as “Miss Black America,” “The Black Airline Pilots Assn.,” “Black Student Unions” or “Black Entertainment Television”?

Can you imagine the uproar by Jackson if the word “black” were replaced by “white” in these titles and others like them?

Chris Roberts

Playa del Rey

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Please, please, please! Will the media please leave Hootie Johnson, Tiger Woods and anyone else involved in the Masters alone! The New York Times thinks Tiger Woods shouldn’t show up to play in the biggest tournament in the world to make a statement? Who exactly would benefit from this? Tiger Woods does not run the Masters. Tiger Woods is not even a voting member of Augusta National. Asking Tiger to boycott the Masters is like asking the sun not to shine. Not gonna happen. Why does the New York Times even care?

And seemingly every sportswriter out there has a cute, simile-laden opinion on how to overthrow Johnson and allow women into the club. Stop it! It ain’t your club. It ain’t your tournament. Cover something more interesting. The media are creating this whole mess when it really is a private disagreement between a man and a woman. Let them handle it themselves. I’m tired of hearing about it.

Hector Reyes

Burbank

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Hootie Johnson said there would be no female members at Augusta National any time soon. You know what they call men who totally agree with Hootie, don’t you? Divorced.

R.J. Johnson

North Hollywood