Augusta National admits two women members

Armageddon, did your friend write this at the time? It would have been a great story.

 

It is more than you have.

 

Sounds like bullshit. Otherwise this writer would have written it, right?

 

Sheesh, it's not even possible that the old coots played "In your eye, puddin' pie" with Martha Burk? For the record, I don't have any information, but I wouldn't get heavily into the folding money in betting either way.

 

Doc, I'm in the same camp as you. I don't have any actual information either way, but it sounds plausible to me. Regardless, I surely don't have enough information to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

 

You understand how deeply ridiculous that sounds though, right?

"We'd have done the right thing except for this person who kept urging us to do the right thing."

 

He still hasn't taken me to play there.

 

It sounds like a bunch of powerful, stubborn guys who damn sure didn't want anyone thinking they did anything that wasn't their idea at their time.

 

So you're saying it's highly unlikely that the ANGC membership might pursue some course of action for a deeply ridiculous reason?

 

Nope. I'm saying we compound an absurdity when we try to blame Martha Burk - who has no vote on membership as far as I know - for anything done or not done by that deeply ridiculous ANGC leadership.

 

It's not ridiculous at all.

When the Lakers fired Paul Westhead in 1981, the decision had been made a few days before. In a meeting between Buss, West and Sharman, they all agreed that firing Westhead was "the right thing."

Two days later, Magic has his "I'm going to ask the man to trade me!" outbust in Utah.

And Buss was quoted as saying . . .

"Now what do we do? If we fire Westhead now, everybody will think it was because of Magic, and that's bad. On the other hand, if we don't fire him, it WILL be because of Magic. In other words, if I don't do what I already intended to do, then I will have actually done what I later will be accused of doing --- making my decision because of Magic. It's the damndest thing."

In the end, they decided to fire Westhead --- knowing Magic would get the blame.

But the fact that they seriously considered not doing so --- and examined all the angles of where "blame" and "credit" would fall --- shows that the Masters scenario is not all that ridiculous at all.


Not wanting to look as though you were pushed into a decision played a big part in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We agreed that removing our missiles from Turkey was "the right thing" to settle the crisis. But the agreement stipulated that we would remove them SIX MONTHS LATER, so that it would not appear as though the Soviets forced our hand (which they did, of course).

The Masters committee could have felt a little more than six months --- or six years --- were needed to save face in their so-called crisis.

 

OK, now I see. And for the record, I don't blame Martha Burk. And I don't think that's what others were doing. Rather, they were just pointing to the quirks of the story.