Have you ever seen a group of 70-year-old men chanting, “No girls allowed!” If the answer is no, you haven’t been to Georgia.

In Augusta, Ga., the Augusta National Golf Club has proclaimed that it will not admit a female member in this, its 69th year of existence.

Augusta chairman Hootie Johnson has declared that The Masters will be played next year and that there is no chance that a woman will be a member of the golf club by then.

On Monday, The New York Times wrote an editorial suggesting that Tiger Woods should boycott The Masters.

This is fine and good, but why did The New York Times suggest that Tiger Woods boycott the 2003 Masters tournament?

A: Tiger Woods is golf’s biggest star.

B: Tiger Woods is black.

C: Tiger Woods is male.

I understand that Woods is the top golfer in the world, but I don’t believe that is why he was asked to boycott the tournament.

Be realistic, Woods is a well-known, public figure–who happens to be black.

In sports today, golf lives and dies based on the scores that Woods posts. It isn’t right to try and force Woods to stand up on the soapbox in front of the world and declare that unless women are present at the private Augusta National Golf Club he will not participate in the tournament.

Every man is not Martin Luther King, Jr., and forcing Woods to be something he is not prepared to be is simply absurd. If Woods does not want to boycott the tournament, he shouldn’t be pressured to do so by anyone, including the media.

Woods has stated that women should be allowed into the club. He also admits that he is not a voting member, only an honorary member. However, he is the one to whom everyone is turning to lead the charge against Hootie and his chamber of chauvinists.

If Woods were white, would there be the same amount of pressure being applied to him to support the women’s movement? I don’t believe there would.

Should women be admitted as members at Augusta? I don’t know, because one of the issues is whether private organizations should be allowed to discriminate. This is where the irony arises …

The group that is pressuring Augusta National is the National Council of Women’s Organizations, a group restricted solely to women. At least karma has a sense of humor.

An organization that doesn’t allow men to join is trying to force another private organization into admitting women. When it comes to discrimination, some things never cease to amaze me.

Thus, to solve the problem at hand we should look to the immortal Dr. Seuss:

But if I ran the zoo,

Said young Gerald McGrew,

I’d make a few changes.

That’s just what I’d do…

I would have the Augusta National Golf Club initiate Martha Burk, the chairwoman of the NCWO, on the same day that Hootie is initiated into the NCWO. Then, the two should trade lucky charms–Martha should wear Hootie’s stars and bars, while Hootie has to wear the female symbol.

This is not a simple issue, and the media should not place one man on the front lines in a battle he is not prepared to fight.

Let the chauvinism end, but don’t use Tiger Woods as your lightning rod.