Protesting Augusta National Golf Club's refusal to admit a woman member, Thomas Wyman, the former chief executive of CBS and a 25-year Augusta National member, has resigned from the club. Wyman is the only member of the ultra-exclusive club to resign since Augusta National's all-male makeup became a public issue in June.
In an interview Monday, Wyman called the position taken by the club's leadership in recent months unacceptable and pig-headed, and he estimated that as many as 75 of the roughly 300 club members also support the admission of a woman.
In a Nov. 27 letter to the club's chairman, William Johnson, Wyman wrote that he hoped his resignation would spur others inside and outside the club to speak out in favor of a woman joining Augusta National, which plays host to the Masters tournament, broadcast by CBS.
A week earlier, Wyman had written to Johnson expressing his dismay at Johnson's staunch opposition to admitting women now as members and encouraged the club to announce that it would admit a woman next year.
In his response, Johnson wrote that he would not change his position on admitting a woman and affirmed that the overwhelming majority of members agreed with his stance.
Johnson added: "I want you to also know that there is no timetable for the admission of women into our membership, nor do I expect there to be one in the foreseeable future."
On Monday, Augusta National issued a statement about Wyman's resignation.
"We are disappointed that Mr. Wyman has chosen to publicize a private matter," club spokesman Glenn Greenspan said. "While we respect the fact that there are differences of opinion on this issue, we intend to stand firm behind our right to make what are both appropriate and private membership choices."
Augusta National has always been famed for its secrecy -- a place where members are prohibited from discussing club procedures or policies outside the pristine Augusta National grounds. In recent months, Johnson, who is known as Hootie, has frequently written to the members reminding them not to discuss the membership issue, even amongst themselves.
"I am not anxious to make this personal," Wyman said Monday. "But Hootie keeps writing that there has not been a single case of protest in the membership. And he absolutely believes this will all go away. It will not go away and it should not. I know there is a large number of members, at least 50 to 75, who believe it is inevitable that there will be and should be a woman member.
"There are obviously some redneck, old-boy types down there, but there are a lot of very thoughtful rational people in the membership and they feel as strongly as I do."
Wyman, 72, led the CBS television network from 1979 to 1986 and was the chairman of the SG Warburg & Co, the American arm of the SG Warburg Group, the British investment firm, from 1992 to 1996. He is now a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School and at the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Two other Augusta National members, who spoke Monday on the condition that they not be identified, said Wyman's resignation might embolden other members to speak out on the issue or even join Wyman in resigning. But both members also said the dissenting group was still a distinct minority at the club.
Wyman also called on Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to support the admission of a woman member.
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