The Masters, the most prestigious golf tournament in the world is over, and wasn’t it spectacular when that one guy won?

His short game was automatic and his drives flew so far they were tracked by the FAA.

OK, it’s obvious I have no idea who won — because this column was written at 11:58 p.m. last Thursday.

Enough about sports though — if you want sports you can flip a few more pages to a part of the Lanthorn they let an illiterate man from Muskegon run. You came here for insightful and oft-correct political commentary and that’s what you shall get.

When “that guy” won The Masters on Sunday, he won it at one of the few clubs this side of elementary school whose official policy is “no girls allowed.” The club has roughly 300 members at any given time. There is no formal application process at the Augusta National Golf Club, and since the club’s founding in 1933 all membership has been by invitation only.

Notable members include Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the richest and second-richest men on Earth, respectively, and other not-as-wealthy individuals like Peter Coors, who has to make and peddle his own beer just to scrape up the $10,000 annual membership fee.

AGNC admitted its first black member in 1990 amid criticism it had discriminatory policies, and has no intentions to admit a female member.

In a world where women have rapidly increasing influence and power, the AGNC is one of the last places where modern women aren’t allowed the same rights and privileges as men.

What makes it okay to bar women from joining the country’s most prestigious golf club?

Would it be okay to bar non-whites from a private club? Or maybe just homosexuals with bad haircuts?

Allowing a club to legally bar women puts the U.S. in a league with Saudi Arabia and other backward countries that openly treat women as second-class citizens. While nobody would confuse the U.S. for a Middle Eastern religious dictatorship, the principle is the same: that it’s okay to deny women equal treatment, even when we strive for equality elsewhere, when really, it isn’t.

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