DESPITE it costing them the prestige of hosting The Open, Muirfield will continue its policy of not allowing women to join the golf club.
While a majority of the membership were in favour of allowing female members, they did not reach a two-third majority vote.
READ MORE: Muirfield banned from hosting The Open after voting against women members
Members of Muirfield had campaigned against women joining and sent out an extraordinary letter - claiming letting females in would "endanger our foursomes and speedy play".
Characterising Muirfield as 'a gentleman's club where golf is played', the letter went on to make the claim that any woman member at Muirfield is "bound to feel uncomfortable" - and makes the bizarre suggestion that letting in women could disrupt the club's lunch arrangements.
Then, in remarks likely to cause outrage among anti-sexism campaigners, the letter claims it would take a "very special lady golfer" to be able to perform at the same level as the club's men.
READ MORE: Muirfield banned from hosting The Open after voting against women members
Here are a few photos that show the club behind the controversy.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article