Rory McIlroy has indicated he cannot easily forgive Muirfield members despite their belated vote to admit women members for the first time in the 273-year history of the course this week.
The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers voted 80 per cent in favour of the rule change on Tuesday, having initially rejected the change with a majority 'no' vote in May 2016.
The vote means Muirfield will now be restored to the rota to stage the Open Championship - but McIlroy, speaking prior to the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Bay Hills, said the issue was not over.
McIlroy told a press conference ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational: "In this day and age where you've got women who are the leaders of certain industries and heads of state, not being able to join a golf course, I think it's obscene and ridiculous.
"They (Muirfield) sort of saw sense, but I still think (that) it got to this stage is horrendous.
"We'll go back and play the Open because they've let women members in, but every time I go to Muirfield now I won't have a great taste in my mouth."
McIlroy strongly supported governing body the R&A last year when it stated that Muirfield would be removed from the list of Open venues until it had a change of heart.
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