Muirfield to hold second vote on women in next few days

Muirfield has confirmed it is to hold its second vote on allowing women to become members in less than a year.

The venue, which lost its status as being on the rota to host the Open Championship when it refused to allow female members to join it last year, faced international ridicule following the ballot.

It is thought the result of the new vote for its members, known as the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, will be known as soon as early March.

Last year’s vote followed a two-year consultation process and fell short of the majority required to change membership policy.

Motions require a two-thirds of its eligible voters to back the move and only 64 per cent voted in favour – falling just a handful of votes short of admitting female members.

Angela Constance MSP. Flickr / Scottish Government

The Scottish government’s equalities secretary, Angela Constance MSP, said the club needs to modernise.

“Muirfield’s current position is quite simply wrong and indefensible,” she said.

“This is 21st century Scotland – with kindness, can I say to Muirfield it’s time to get out the dark ages and enter and embrace the 21st century, because opening their membership up to women is not only the right thing to do, this is the smart thing to do as well.

“This is bad for the club, bad for the local economy and it’s time for Muirfield to do the right thing.”

Media reports have suggested the club is confident the outcome will be different this time.

A statement by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers read: “Our members will vote on a resolution to admit women as members on equal terms with men, with a vote in favour recommended by the club committee.”

Last month a plaque was erected on a wooden bench along busy West Princes Street in Edinburgh that read: ‘The members of Muirfield Golf Club are hereby excluded from sitting on this bench. By order of the female population of Edinburgh’.