Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.
Right around this time last year, the nation was all in a dither because of the controversy at Shoal Creek Country Club. Shoal Creek, you may remember, was the country club in Birmingham, Ala., where the 1990 PGA championship golf tournament was scheduled to be held. Shoal Creek was an all-white club, and intended to stay that way.
Because of some candid comments to that effect by a Shoal Creek official, a great outcry arose. Touring golf pros competing at clubs with racial and/or religious restrictions? Shocking! Simply shocking! Never mind that it was ever so; after Shoal Creek the various ruling bodies of pro golf decreed that from now on, the tour would shun clubs that restricted their memberships on the basis of race, religion or gender.
And there was jubilation in the land. We were on our way to a new era of brotherhood (and sisterhood), the commentators declared; racial justice, at long last, was coming to the country clubs.
In a column during all of that, I made a suggestion: Don`t hold your breath.
Nothing was going to change, I predicted; the all-white country clubs would much rather throw the professional golf tournaments out than let blacks in. If it came down to losing a tour event, or having blacks and Jews in the grill room, the country club members would wave goodbye to the touring pros with nary a regret.
Furthermore, I predicted, the all-white, all-gentile clubs that threw the golf tours out would become even more prestigious in their own restricted circles. Suddenly not having the pro golf tour at a club would be a status symbol; not having the pros at a club would become a snobbish code phrase with which all-white, all-gentile clubs could identify themselves: ”A serene and elegant country club with a rich tradition and no PGA tournaments.”
Well, my mailbox overflowed with angry letters. How dare you say that, the people wrote. Country clubs are fine repositories of all that is good in America. How dare you say that the clubs won`t do the right thing?
Now a year has passed. Shoal Creek is a memory. Professional golf is still on record as saying that if country clubs discriminate, they may not play host to tournaments.
And what has happened? Time magazine just printed a two-page story with the headline: ”The Last Bastions of Bigotry.” The theme of the story
(shocking!) was that many country clubs would rather give up the golf tournaments than allow blacks as members.
At least eight country clubs, according to Time, gave up major golf championships rather than change their membership rules. Five all-white clubs said they would change their behavior-but of those five, four had admitted one black member each, and the fifth had not admitted any, but promised to do so by 1993.
The Time story echoed a Tribune survey of country clubs in the Chicago area. In May this newspaper reported that of 74 area country clubs studied, only 10 had any black members.
What is the reason for this? It is the reason that sticks in the craw of those of us who wish the world were different-a reason so simple that it is not open to debate:
The all-white, all-gentile country clubs want to stay that way because their members don`t like being around blacks and Jews. Period.
That`s an inelegant way to put it, but it`s the flat-out truth. Is it prejudiced, bigoted and small-minded? You bet. You can hide it behind phrases like ”heritage” and ”tradition” and ”long waiting lists,” but if those country clubs had wanted blacks and Jews on the first tee, there would have been blacks and Jews there years ago. The pro golf tour didn`t have to jog anyone`s conscience.
What do you think the members of these restricted clubs said, in the privacy of their clubhouses, after the Shoal Creek controversy? Do you think they said: ”Gosh, now that you mention it, I do notice that there are no blacks and Jews here. How could we have overlooked that? I guess we`ve just been so busy running our corporations that we haven`t looked around us at the club. That`s what we need here: Blacks! Jews! How could we have been so dumb!”
Of course they didn`t say that. The reason that blacks and Jews weren`t allowed into the clubs was that the members didn`t want blacks and Jews around them. And when it became a question of what was more important-having PGA tournaments at the club or keeping blacks and Jews out-a lot of clubs decided to forgo the tournaments. The club members shouldn`t try to defend this. After all, they made the decision. Case closed.
