Golf: Cautious Moderniser Puts Women on Course, But Not for Members' Bar

The last thing Peter Dawson, the sharp-suited, sharp-witted secretary of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, wants to do is pose on the first-floor balcony of the R&A clubhouse with his arms stretched between two uprights.

For one thing, it's freezing out there. And for another, he is reluctant to leave his reputation in the hands of a mischievous journalist who might want to cast him as a Samsonesque figure, ready to bring the ancient home of the golfing establishment down on the heads of the grey-haired, blazer-wearing members supping soup in the dining room below.

As anyone who has followed the public pronouncements and internal politics of the R&A over the last few years will know, that is precisely what Dawson insists he does not want to do. But every once in a while he just can't stop himself.

"If it really offends people then we would take it out," he says, pausing to assess what it would mean if the entry form for the Open Championship was altered to remove the wording specifying that only men can enter the world's greatest golf tournament.

What it would mean, plain and simple, is this: from 2006 onwards (the entry forms for the 2005 Open have already been printed), women, assuming their golf is good enough to carry them through the qualification stages, will be teeing up with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh on the sport's biggest stage.

That, I suggest, could accurately be described as a revolution in St Andrews.

"We want evolution at the R&A, not revolution," Dawson says, sensing that perhaps he has overstepped his authority (he is, after all, an employee of the R&A and not its unimpeachable leader).

"Of course, all changes have to be considered by the championship committee before they can be implemented. But in this instance the wording isn't serving any purpose, so I would support taking it out. Not that I want to see the Open as a dual-sex event, because golf at the elite level is not being played like that."

That final caveat is classic Dawson; one step forward, half a step back. Indeed, when it comes to other aspects of golf's perennial "gender" debate, he often forgets the step forward.

Women members at the R&A?

"No chance."

No more staging the Open Championship at notorious men-only clubs like Royal Troon and Muirfield?

"What would that achieve?"

It would send a message to the wider world that golf is not an elitist, male-dominated sport, that's what.

He shakes his head. "Symbolism is way overrated."

In many ways, Dawson is a vintage R&A sort - Cambridge blue, successful businessman, champion amateur golfer - but since his appointment as secretary he has sought, with the aid of a sharp press operation, to develop a reputation as a modernising figure - a golfing version of Tony Blair, almost.

But the fact is that Dawson, like the prime minister, is hidebound by the realpolitik of the world he inhabits and the organisation he heads. Yet spend time in his company and it's hard to escape the feeling that while his heart may be with the old codgers in the R&A dining room downstairs there is a little corner of his soul that belongs to the Golf Punk generation (a magazine that he reads, incidentally) and with those who argue that the game of golf needs to step out of the 1950s and into the 21st century. At the very least, he isn't shy when it comes to admitting that the sport is facing many problems.

At grassroots level, club membership is at historically low levels, with many clubs across the country reporting difficulties in attracting women and junior members in particular.

"Participation as a whole has remained steady but the problems come with individual clubs, many of which no longer have waiting lists. I think it's partly due to the fact that people are moving towards pay-and-play golf, rather than signing up to play at one particular course," Dawson says. "It's also true clubs are not attracting enough young girls and boys, which means that clubs should look at themselves and decide why they may be unwelcoming to certain kinds of people and put that right."

Dawson declines to identify specific problems but then he doesn't have to, at least not to those poor people for whom a visit to the average suburban golf club means enduring the clubhouse cliques, ludicrous dress restrictions and all-pervading sense that women and junior golfers are to be tolerated rather than embraced.

At the professional level, the sport has a rather healthier appearance, superficially at least. Prize money is stratospheric, while tournament attendances and television audiences remain steady (at least for the major events). But there is an evident need to expand the sport into new territories, such as China, and into new arenas, such as the Olympic Games - a push that has foundered on the sport's failure to adopt even the mildest anti-doping regime.

"It's been a mess," Dawson says of the sport's drugs policy, although the R&A has recently issued a "model" anti-doping code for golfing organisations around the world. "Part of the problem in getting our act together has been the question of whether drugs can actually improve your performance in golf. It's also a question of whether or not there is any widespread use. I think there are some cases of social drugs use in the sport. But if there are people out there using steroids or beta blockers, you would think, being around the game, you would hear more about it."

Still, Dawson is more than happy to support the introduction of drug testing in the sport, not least at the Open. "We already reserve the right to test someone at the Open, and if they were behaving strangely we would almost certainly do it. But we would not introduce wholesale testing at that one particular tournament unless it was part of an anti-doping regime that stretches across 52 weeks of the year. To test the players for just that one week of the year would be unfair."

The other significant issue occupying Dawson's mind is the technological advance in equipment, which he describes as the most intractable and intellectually challenging problem facing the sport. This year's Open Championship will see the Old Course at St Andrews stretched to its limits, with five new tees and an extra 140 yards added since Tiger Woods won there in 2000. It's the same story at Augusta National, home of the Masters tournament, where another classic course has been radically altered in an effort to defend its honour and reputation in the age of 340-yard tee shots.

Last year, however, Augusta's chairman Hootie Johnson indicated that he'd had enough and, according to recent reports, he is now considering introducing a "Masters" ball - one designed specifically for the Augusta tournament that will not fly as far as balls currently used by the pros.

Dawson, it seems, has also reached the end of the tether. "Golf's governing bodies were definitely slow in grappling with this issue in the 1990s but over the last couple of years it appears things have slowed down," he says. "Both balls and clubs have reached the limits within the rules. Hopefully we have drawn a line in the sand. But if we are proved wrong and hitting distances continue to go up, we will do something about it. We will rein the ball back."

Even if the equipment companies take legal action, as they have long threatened to do?

"One is apprehensive but believe it or not we at the R&A want to do what's best for golf and not what's best for the R&A. We don't want this to be world war three but will do what we need to do. I think it's safe to say the Old Course will not be changed again."

One gets the feeling that the same will not be said of the R&A, at least not while Dawson is the man in charge.