A female columnist covering the Masters golf tournament at Augusta was stopped by security while pursuing an interview with Rory McIlroy, the 21-year-old golfer who melted down during Sunday’s final round.
Tara Sullivan, a columnist for New Jersey’s Bergen Record newspaper, was barred entrance to the men’s locker at Augusta, a club that doesn’t allow women members, while her male colleagues were allowed in.
“Bad enough no women members at Augusta,” Sullivan tweeted. “But not allowing me to join writers in locker room interview is just wrong.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke shared quotes from McIlroy with Sullivan, who was able to finish her column.
And she eventually received an apology from Masters media official Steve Ethun. “It was a complete misunderstanding by tournament week security,” Ethun told Sullivan, “and you should have rightfully been given access per the standard practices of major sporting events.” The security guard, she determined, probably “[confused] club policy with Masters policy.”
It nonetheless touched a nerve on Twitter, which lit up with outraged retweets of the incident.
On Monday, Sullivan recounted the experience in a separate column for the Record, explaining why she didn’t protest more:
Rather than disrupt the deadline efforts of my working colleagues, I stopped there. I looked around for any official Masters representative, but didn’t see anyone. I asked the security woman again why they had such a policy, and she told me it was because there was an open bathroom area in the locker room. My response was, “yes, just like all of the pro locker rooms I routinely go into.”
