I watched the final round of the Masters yesterday.
I don’t typically watch golf tournaments because watching other people play golf annoys me, as it makes me want to play golf, but I spent much of yesterday flying to Seattle, so it was an ideal time to enjoy some golf while being stuck in a big, flying tube.
Jim Nantz, the host of The Masters, opened the broadcast by reveling in the 70-year partnership between CBS and The Masters.
“The longest partnership in broadcasting history,” he swooned.
I couldn’t help but think:
Sure, Jim. 70 years is a great run, but for exactly half of those years, Augusta National didn’t allow black members to play golf or enter their tournament. For half of your historic broadcast partnership, you were partners with a segregated golf club that forbade black people from being members or playing golf on its hallowed course.
Had Augusta National not finally caved to public pressure in 1990 and admitted non-white members, Tiger Woods would’ve never been able to win his five green jackets in the tournament.
How many black golfers were denied that opportunity prior to 1990?
Even more surprising, Augusta National didn’t allow women to become members and play on its hallowed course until 2012 — more than 50 years into CBS’s fabled 70-year partnership and just 14 years ago.
Augusta National and CBS may have a strong partnership, but one of those partners was a bigot for a long time.
Maybe a little less swooning, Jim, when it comes to describing your storied partnership.
Despite Augusta National’s wretched, bigoted past, I still enjoyed watching The Masters, just as I love baseball despite its wretched, racist past.
I love my country despite its wretched, bigoted past, too.
Thankfully, people, organizations, and institutions can evolve and become better, brighter beacons of what is right and just. That is the beauty of time, education, and wisdom. But we can’t simply drape a sepia gauze over the past and pretend that terrible things didn’t happen for a very long time.
1990 and 2012 weren’t that long ago.
It took Augusta National longer than almost every other institution in America to leave its institutional bigotry behind.
They fought for segregation for an abominably long time.
That fact was fixed in my mind as I watched Rory McIlroy win The Masters yesterday for the second time in a row.
It didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the telecast. It simply informed it.
