Peter Alliss: Women who want to play at Muirfield should get married to a member
Golf commentator Peter Alliss has suggested women who still want to play at Muirfield golf course after it voted to block female membership should marry an existing member.
Muirfield lost the right to host the Open after its members failed to reach a two-thirds majority needed on a vote to allow female membership and according to former professional golfer Alliss, the situation is similar to him requesting to join the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS).
Read more: Muirfield stripped of right to host the Open after voting against allowing female members
"The women who are there as wives of husbands, they get all the facilities," Allis told BBC Radio 5 Live.
"If somebody wants to join, well you'd better get married to somebody who's a member. I believe clubs were formed years ago by people of like spirit: doctors, lawyers, accountants, bakers, butchers, whatever they like. And they joined in like spirit to talk amongst them and to do whatever.
"I want to join the WVS but unless I have a few bits and pieces nipped away in my body I'm not going to be able to get in.
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Allis then went on to suggest that even if women were allowed to join, they would save money and time by avoiding huge membership fees and waiting lists by simply wedding an existing member.
"It's a very emotive subject," he added. "I don't think all the true facts have come out. I was at the Open Championship two or three years ago and I used to go in for a coffee every morning. There's a very nice drawing room in the clubhouse at Muirfield and it was full of ladies who were all chatting – 'Hello, Peter how are you doing?' – and me in my usual, jocular, quiet way suggested, 'What great times are coming, you'll be able to join the club'.
"And there was a look of horror on the faces of the ladies, ladies whose husbands were members, and I was met with 'Good Lord, no we don't want to be members. If we joined, our husbands would have to pay thousands of pounds for our entry fee and our subscriptions. We can come and play and do pretty much what we wish for nothing'."