Muirfield, a few miles out of Edinburgh on the East Lothian coast, is one of the world’s great golf courses. Indeed, the magazine Golf Monthly has rated it the best of all. Jack Nicklaus won the first of his three Open Championships there in 1966, and when he designed his own course in Dublin, Ohio, he named it Muirfield Village. Other winners there include Harry Vardon and James Braid (two of the pre-1914 Triumvirate), Walter Hagen, Henry Cotton, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els, and Phil Mickelson. The Open has been held there fourteen times, and, as you can see, it has almost always produced a great champion. But there will be no more Opens at Muirfield, for some time at least. The Championship Committee of the R&A has just removed the course from its rota of Open venues.

The reason? Muirfield—more properly the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers—is a men-only club, and the members have just rejected a proposal to open the membership to ladies. There was actually a majority in favor of the motion, but the rules of the club require a two-thirds majority for change, and the vote fell just short of this.

ShedRain WindPro Vente... Buy New $34.05 (as of 11:15 UTC - Details) The rejection of the proposal has stirred up what in Scotland we call a fine stushie. “Antediluvian” is perhaps the least uncomplimentary term of abuse directed at the Honourable Company. They would, it seems, be dinosaurs if they weren’t still alive. The expression of outrage isn’t surprising. Sexism is one of the today’s Deadly Sins, nowhere more so than in Scotland. We’ve come a long way since John Knox, the leader of the 16th-century Scottish Reformation, inveighed against what he described as “The Monstrous Regiment of Women.” By “regiment” he meant “rule,” and doubtless if he were still with us, he would look at Scotland today with horror. The First Minister of Scotland is a woman, Nicola Sturgeon, and the leaders of the two main opposition parties are also women. There are female Senators of the College of Justice (as senior judges are called here), but, though the Honourable Company is seen as a pillar of the legal establishment, these judges can’t be members of Muirfield. Contrary to common belief, they can play golf there as guests of members, and even as visitors, but they can’t join the Honourable Company. Other bastions of male privilege or exclusivity may have been breached, but not Muirfield. A club that still requires members, guests, and visitors to wear a jacket and tie at lunch isn’t in any hurry to embrace the 21st century. (Some of its critics would say it has scarcely emerged from the 19th.)

It’s a place where tradition rules. This isn’t surprising. The Honourable Company dates from 1744, when it was known as “The Gentlemen Golfers” and played on a five-hole course on Leith Links. It drew up the first rules of golf, and more than a century passed before it handed over responsibility for the rules to the Royal and Ancient at St. Andrews, which, by the way, itself consented to admit lady members only some three years ago.

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