GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. - On Monday morning, Augusta National Golf Club announced that is has added two female members.
The two members named are not your average Janes. They are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, a very successful businesswoman from South Carolina, who was once the highest paid woman in banking.
Dee Forsberg-McCullagh is golf pro at Brookview Golf Course in Golden Valley and she says while the news isn't shocking, it is good.
"Augusta National is kind of a big player in the world of golf," she said. "They host a national tournament, international tour and I think it's also significant because really they host the captains of the industry out there.
During the Masters tournament in April, the club's chairman still wouldn't talk about the absence of women at Augusta.
"Having women members I think is very, very important and I think it's about time," Forsberg-McCullagh said.
Augusta's leaders had been under heavy fire in the last year to do this, but just hadn't budged.
At that time President Barack Obama and the likely Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney, both publicly said the club should open its doors to female members.
Augusta has been slow to change, for certain. The club didn't add its first black member until 1990 and until now women had only been allowed to play as guests of members.
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