AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — It began with a letter that Martha Burk figured would by no means see the sunshine of day.

When she talked about the all-male membership at Augusta Nationwide, the Nationwide Council of Ladies’s Group didn’t even vote on whether or not to take motion.

“It was a really informal dialog on the finish of a board assembly,” Burk mentioned in a latest interview. “I had came upon about this membership and mentioned I used to be fascinated about writing a letter. Everybody mentioned, ‘Advantageous, write the letter.’ I by no means anticipated my letter to go anyplace. I assumed in a number of years I may need adopted up with a cellphone name.”

There was no want.

Hootie Johnson, the chairman of Augusta Nationwide, wrote a three-sentence reply to her that membership issues have been personal. The subsequent day he issued a scathing, 932-word assertion to the media that defended the rights of a non-public membership and mentioned a lady becoming a member of Augusta Nationwide can be on the membership’s timetable and “not on the level of a bayonet.”

So started the largest controversy in Masters historical past.

It culminated 20 years in the past with a rally through the third spherical. Burk, sporting a bulletproof vest beneath a inexperienced golf shirt, spoke to about 40 supporters in quite a bit a half-mile away from Magnolia Lane as a result of authorities denied her permission to protest throughout from the membership.

After which all of it went away, or so it appeared. Tv sponsors returned in 2005, after the Masters had lower them unfastened to maintain them out of the fray. It wasn’t till 9 years after the protest that Augusta Nationwide introduced former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore had accepted invites to affix.

“We didn’t achieve our objective to get the membership open to ladies on the time,” Burk mentioned. “They waited a protracted sufficient time that we wouldn’t get credit score. However had we not carried out that, I feel there nonetheless wouldn’t be ladies members.”

Through the course of this battle, Burk was invited to be a part of a Golf World journal cowl. The headline was “12 months of the Ladies.” She was amongst 5 ladies on the duvet as the highest newsmakers of the 12 months, and had no manner of realizing then that one in all them — Suzy Whaley — would go on to turn into the primary feminine president on the PGA of America.

___

The panorama has modified during the last 20 years, however not shortly sufficient for some who nonetheless see a fantastic gender disparity. Augusta Nationwide has not less than six feminine members sporting inexperienced jackets through the Masters.

Essentially the most noticeable — and extra related — change is exterior the membership.

Two years after Augusta Nationwide had its first feminine members, Whaley in 2014 was elected secretary of the PGA of America, a 28,000-strong group of membership professionals. She rose to president 4 years later. Diana Murphy in 2016 turned solely the second president within the 121-year historical past of the U.S. Golf Affiliation.

The Royal & Historical Golf Membership voted overwhelmingly in 2014 to simply accept ladies for the primary time, and later eliminated Muirfield from the British Open rotation when the historic golf membership in Scotland rejected combined membership.

Muirfield held a second vote in 2017 and altered with the occasions. The membership often called the “Honorable Firm of Edinburgh Golfers” that dates to 1744 not solely has feminine members, it hosted the Ladies’s British Open final 12 months for the primary time.

The USGA introduced in 2007 the U.S. Ladies’s Open can be going to Pebble Seashore, probably the most iconic venue of the lads’s U.S. Open. That turns into actuality this summer time. Additionally on the USGA calendar is a second staging the U.S. Open and the U.S. Open Ladies’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in consecutive weeks.

“For those who take a look at the world, should you take a look at golf, we’ve come a good distance,” Whaley mentioned. “I prefer to paraphrase Condi Rice. She at all times talks about suffrage and issues that occurred earlier than. But additionally look ahead. What can I do to make it higher for many who come behind us?”

___

Whaley earned her place on that Golf World cowl as a high-energy Connecticut membership professional who turned the primary girl since 1945 to qualify for a PGA Tour occasion. Annika Sorenstam, who additionally was on the duvet, performed a males’s occasion two months forward of Whaley because of a sponsor invitation.

Whaley now serves on the board of the Annika Basis, and so they lately caught up whereas doing a CBS particular. Whaley recollects the Masters controversy being “proper on prime of us” as they ready to play in opposition to the lads. They not often made it by means of an interview with out being requested about it.

“We have been all thrown collectively on this ladies’s motion in golf,” Whaley mentioned.

Whaley performed the LPGA Tour briefly, married membership professional Invoice Whaley, had two daughters and by no means misplaced the itch for golf. She spent hours observing famed instructors, and it led to her getting licensed as a educating professional by the LPGA Tour and the PGA of America.

After transferring to Connecticut, she was recruited to run a public course known as Blue Fox Run. The proprietor, Lisa Wilson Foley, needed a lady as the pinnacle professional. Whaley discovered on the job.

She has seen ladies in roles not many have been in 20 years in the past — engineers behind the know-how of drivers, guidelines officers, the overall supervisor of a 140-year-old membership that hosted the U.S. Open final 12 months, the president of a membership is internet hosting the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the C-suite in main golf organizations.

“We are able to have fun the progress, the place we’re right now,” she mentioned. “My query is the place are we going subsequent? What’s subsequent for company? What’s subsequent for media? The underside line is that this — I’m actually proud of the place we’re headed. We want critical help to get the place we needs to be.”

___

Alex Baldwin is the primary girl to be president of Korn Ferry Tour, the first path to the PGA Tour, and her function is increasing to convey extra excursions into the pathway.

“We had a dinner in Savannah (Georgia), and we had 60 totally different title sponsors. We had occasion operators come out, we had a golf course proprietor. It was individuals who represented our tour,” Baldwin mentioned. “It actually was 50-50 illustration women and men. I’ve been to numerous dinners the place I’m the one girl. It was a cool second to have.”

The Korn Ferry Tour is the place careers started for the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson and Zach Johnson.

Baldwin, in her fourth 12 months as president, has observed fewer questions on being a lady on this management function, and he or she’s pleased about that. She would attribute the features extra to a altering tradition in society, not simply golf.

Even so, there are moments that remind her of change. One occurred in Chile final week, the place the Korn Ferry Tour performed for the primary time.

“A younger girl sought me out — she was concerned in a junior program,” Baldwin mentioned. “She mentioned, ‘I needed to satisfy you. You’re a lady, and I can’t inform you how inspiring that’s.’”

___

Burk by no means paid a lot consideration to golf earlier than she wrote that letter to Augusta Nationwide, and now she solely is conscious of the game when the Masters rolls round.

At 81, her time is spent largely on equal pay and different political points affecting ladies. She additionally hosts three-minute podcasts known as, “Equal Time with Martha Burk.”

Burk, along with her Texas twang, by no means wanted numerous time to get to her level.

“What number of ladies are at Augusta now? Six? That’s 2%,” she mentioned, basing it on the belief the membership has about 300 members. “Let’s do some math. Ladies are nonetheless pathetically behind in U.S. enterprise, anyway. We’ve simply damaged although to 10% (of CEOs) in Fortune 500s. For those who equate that — which we must — to the membership at Augusta Nationwide, they ought need to have 30.”

One among her youngsters lately gave her a program known as “Storyworth” to share recollections. One immediate requested her to inform the craziest factor that ever occurred to her. The reply got here simply.

She wrote a letter to an all-male membership, not totally realizing about Augusta Nationwide or the Masters. She recalled her oldest son telling her, “Mom, you may have attacked the Westminster Abbey of golf.”

“Although it has been 20 years, folks nonetheless cease me on the road or comment after they hear my title,” Burk concluded in her Storybook entry. “I’m fond of claiming the Augusta battle will probably be on my headstone.”

___

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports