Augusta Country Club is the only private club in the area that restricts women from playing golf on Saturday mornings. FILE/STAFF

An informal survey at last week's CSRA Women's Golf Association 54-hole Championship found few players on the side of Burk, who is pressuring the all-male Augusta National Golf Club to admit a woman as a member.

Cathy McKie, a three-time winner of the CSRA Women's Golf Association event, opposes Burk and said that was the consensus among women she's talked to about the issue.

Burk, the chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, has pushed her cause since early summer, when she requested a meeting with Augusta National and Masters Tournament chairman Hootie Johnson to discuss adding a woman to the membership roll.

Johnson turned down the request, adding that the club doesn't have a policy against admitting female members.

"My opinion is that they can have a private course if they want to, just as well as women can have their own private course," said McKie, of North Augusta.

"I don't see any problem with it," McKie said. "If someone wanted to invite me as a woman to play as a guest there and they said, 'No, you can't play because you're a woman,' now that would bother me. The way it is now, that's their business."

Women are allowed to play Augusta National as guests of members.

"I've played it three or four times," said Irene DeBarge, of Augusta. "I don't think women have any right to be over there. Let them (Augusta National members) have their course. I think Martha Burk should go to some other matter that is more important."

Burk contends Augusta National is discriminating against women.

In the late 1980s, the club came under fire for racial discrimination because it didn't have a black member.

Augusta National, which never had a policy against having black members, admitted its first black in 1990.

Aiken's Mary Habersham, who is black and has played Augusta National, doesn't believe Augusta National is guilty of sexual discrimination.

"Augusta National has been that way for many years, and sometimes men have got to have their own thing," Habersham said. "I think if we had our own thing, we probably wouldn't want them to invade us. I think it should be up to them whether they admit women or not. I don't think they should be pressured into doing it. I think they should do it only if they feel it is the right thing to do."

Said Aiken's Judy Allardice, "It's a private club, and they can invite whoever they want. They're not keeping women from playing, if you know a member. I think they're perfectly justified in not having any women members."

The women questioned at the CSRA Women's Golf Association 54-hole Championshipsaid they felt the same way about Aiken's Sage Valley Golf Club, the 11-month-old upscale club that has no female members.

The other 12 area private clubs do have female members, though one has a restrictive policy.

At Augusta Country Club, women are not allowed to play before noon on Saturdays. That includes Laura Coble, the Georgia State Golf Association's women's amateur player of the year the past four years.

Coble would not comment on the restriction.

McKie, a member at Savannah Lakes Village in McCormick, S.C., has no such reservations.

"I have a problem with that," McKie said. "It's probably still a man's world, to put it bluntly. I would not belong to a club that did that."

"That is a form of discrimination, if you cannot play at a certain time," said Habersham, a member at Woodside Plantation in Aiken. "If there is a tee time available, I think you should be able to play. Otherwise, you are discriminating. This is 2002, going on 2003."

Augusta Country Club does not have tee times, but women know the "Saturday rule" and don't show up on the first tee.

Augusta Country Club does have a Ladies Day on Tuesdays, when only women can tee off between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.

From 1936 to 1966, the course played host to the Titleholders women's professional tournament and recently signed a contract to play host to the 2004 Georgia Women's Golf Association Match Play championship.

"I think we're pretty amiable to women's play," said Augusta Country Club general manager Henry Marburger.

Other than that, Marburger said he "would not speak to our rules. We're a private club, and we don't want to put them in the newspaper."

West Lake Country Club member Jan Cross won a women's restriction battle at the Martinez course in the early 1990s. At the time, Cross said, female members were not permitted to play on Saturdays before 1:30 p.m. and on Wednesdays between 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

She decided to take action when a male member asked her to play on a Wednesday afternoon during the restricted period.

"I wrote a letter to the board of directors requesting they review the policy," Cross said. "After much ado, they did, and we're now permitted to play whenever we like."

"It was not even discussed; the board said 'fine,"' said West Lake head pro Mark Darnell.

At the time of the West Lake restrictions, only women could tee off before noon on Thursdays. When the women's restrictions were lifted, that was discontinued, too.

Restrictions on women's weekend play are long-standing but fading traditions at private clubs.

Darnell said restrictions started because few women were in the workforce. Clubs felt if women wanted to play golf, they should do it during the week, when men were working. The weekend mornings would be for men.

"I think it goes back to the old-timey idea that women ought to be home taking care of the kids," Cross said. "They felt, 'this is just our territory,' and it was for so long. But if they're taking your money, they need to give you equal rights."

With so many working women now, weekend restrictions against women at private clubs are disappearing.

"I see it in all the seminars I do around the country," said Darnell, who is a PGA of America Master Professional.

"There are so many female executives in the workforce that need access to the courses," Darnell said. "With so many women working, you have to be realistic about the whole thing."

Reach David Westin at (706) 724-0851.