KARRIE WEBB GIVES MUIRFIELD MEN-ONLY STRONGHOLD ONE FINAL BLAST

FROM THE TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By ALASDAIR REID

Just when the gentlemen of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers thought it was safe to retreat to the all-male fastness of their Muirfield clubhouse, Karrie Webb is happy to deliver one last shot across their bows.

Aussie Webb, pictured, says she is trying to be diplomatic, but her feelings are clear. “I don’t have a problem with a private club choosing who they allow to be members,” she says breezily.
“The problem I have is when a private club like that decides to host a very public event.

“If you are going to hold a public event, take money from the public and from public companies, it is pretty hard to say that only a certain kind of person is allowed to be a member here. I would have no problem with Muirfield saying: ‘We are a great links course and a private men’s club’, and just never holding the Open Championship there.”

Maybe not the most lacerating denunciation possible, but far clearer than any of the mealy-mouthed utterances the male players produced at Muirfield last week. 

And fuel, perhaps, for some interesting conversations over the next few days when she moves into the locker room of that other notorious Scottish bastion of single-sex golf, the R and A clubhouse (pictured above) at the Old Course, St Andrews.

Webb, who is playing in the ISPS Handa European Masters at the Buckinghamshire this weekend, will be looking to add to the seven women’s major titles she has already won when she takes part in the Ricoh Women’s British Open on the Old Course this week. Famously, the course itself is publicly owned (and administered by the St Andrews Links Trust); infamously, the membership of the club whose home overlooks its first tee and 18th green, is still 100 per cent male.

In 1930, St Andrews provided one leg of Bobby Jones’s grand slam of four majors in a single calendar year, arguably the greatest achievement in golf history. Eighty-three years later, South Korea’s Inbee Park stands on the threshold of repeating that feat, having already secured the Kraft-Nabisco, LPGA Championship and US Women’s Open titles.

The recent decision to upgrade the Evian Masters to major status means that Park would still have to win once more to clinch the women’s grand slam, but what she has already done is astonishing.
“I thinks it is fantastic for women’s golf, no matter what happens now,” Webb says.
 “St Andrews is going to get a lot more attention because of it. The world will be watching, whether she wins or not.
"If she wins she will have done something that only one other person has ever done. Then, she will have a chance to do something no one has ever done, which is to win five.
"I would be very surprised if she’s not in contention. I don’t know if she has a heartbeat. She shakes off a bad shot better than anyone I’ve ever seen. To judge by her expression or demeanour, it just doesn’t affect her at all.”
Webb could easily be one of Park’s main rivals. The dominant figure in her sport at the turn of the century, the Australian, now 38, has enjoyed a resurgence this year, winning the Australian Masters and the Shoprite LPGA Classic. 
Having been out of the major-winners’ circle since 2006, Webb rather likes the idea of a return.
She laughs at the suggestion that, in the wake of the Lions and the Ashes, Australia needs a sporting boost right now – “It’s just the ebb and flow of sport; we’ll be back up there”, – but she would be happy to provide one when golf returns to the Olympics in Rio in 2016.
Webb says: “That’s what has kept me playing. Annika [Sorenstam] retired because she knew she didn’t want to work as hard as we do any more. I’ll probably get to that point as well, but the goal of representing my country in the Olympics is one that really excites me.”