Despite Muirfield golf club taking the decision to overturn its long-standing rule against the allowance of female members in the golf club earlier this week ahead of the upcoming Open Championship, Rory McIlroy is still disgusted that it took this long for the change to happen.
The privately-owned golf club held a vote on whether or not to overturn the rule and allow female members and it was passed with 80.2% of the votes.
Rory McIlroy had spoken out last year about how he had not desire to play at a golf club that held up such a rule, so naturally he was asked for his opinion on the rule change at the first available opportunity. And he did not hold back.
McIlroy expressed his disbelief that the 'obscene' rule took so long to abolish, and claimed that any time he plays at the course in future he will do so with a bad taste in his mouth.
Yeah, like I, Muirfield wouldn't be one of my favorite Open rota courses, so no matter the decision yesterday, if it had been kept off The Open Championship rota, I wouldn't have been that unhappy. But no, I think it's --obviously I was outspoken about this before whenever the vote went the first time around.
I mean, in this day and age, where you've got women that are like the leaders of certain industries and women that are heads of state and not to be able to join a golf course? I mean, it's obscene. Like it's ridiculous. So, they sort of saw sense.
I still think that it got to the stage, this stage, is horrendous. And yeah, I mean, we'll go back and well play The Open Championship, because they will let women members in, but every time I go to Muirfield now I won't have a great taste in my mouth.
And on the fact that 20% of the members actually voted to keep the rule:
Yeah, I know, exactly. It's horrendous. I mean, I just don't, I don't get it. So, anyway, look, we'll go back there for The Open Championship at some point and I won't be having many cups of tea with the members afterwards.
Kudos to Rory McIlroy for not holding back on Muirfield opinion: pic.twitter.com/k643GYLLfD
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelESPN) March 15, 2017
It's good to hear someone of McIlroy's standing in the game take such a firm stance the issue.
The Open last year put it to Muirfield that the course would be taken out of the rotation for hosting the event if the rule did not change, which saw McIlroy back the proposed exclusion, but now that the rule has changed, it's clear that he won't be forgetting how long it took.
While women are now allowed to become members, the club has admitted that it will take as long as two years for the first female member to successfully make it through the lengthy membership process. Sounds like fun.
