A little, guilty part of me is applauding the green-coated anachronists at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, where men are men and women are invisible. A tiny corner of my conscience sees what the members are doing and says, “Give 'em hell.”

        The women are at the gates, poised to storm Magnolia Lane and liberate the venerable place from the tragedy of its all-maleness. They want to be members.

        Their threats already have caused Augusta National to drop its three corporate sponsors for this year's Masters. Masters chairman Hootie Johnson is bellowing in indignant pain. So what if he sounds as if he's stuck in 1955?

        We'd hoped Augusta National would join the 20th century before it expired. But it wasn't a requirement. Clubs are exclusionary. That's why they're clubs. If they don't take public money, they can keep out whomever they choose. I'll never be a member at Augusta National. I'll never be Girl Scout, either, or a Playmate of the Month. And really, so what?

        Should Augusta have women members? Of course. It should've had them 50 years ago. Should Augusta be subjected to economic sanctions because it has no female members? Absolutely not.

        A great thing about the Masters is how it ignores the P.C. whims of the moment. Membership sports a complete lack of pretense on the subject, which is also great. The green-coots are who they are. If you want to believe they eat with their fingers and do their accounting on cave walls, go for it. Then go away.

        You have to like that, just a little. And this: While the rest of Sports World descends to fast-buck selling out, the Masters covers in green paper the Coke logos at its concession stands. Corporate big-wallets can't attend a big sporting event unless they're hand-fed Beluga and foie gras in air-conditioned tents bigger than a Wal-Mart. Except at the Masters, where many of them can't even get in.

        Sports World worships at the trough of TV money. The Masters limits commercial time to four minutes an hour. You could spend $125 for a middling ticket to a regular-season L.A. Lakers game. Or you could go to the Masters for a week. They do things right at the Masters, in an understated fashion that is refreshingly out of step with the times.

        Does this excuse their stance on women members? Nope. But it gives them a little rope. The green-coots need to update a few of their principles. At least they have some.

        Debbie Kline has seen it all before. She's watching the club and the women slug it out from a perch of keen perspective. A decade ago, Kline fought to play golf at Terrace Park Country Club whenever she wished. As it was, women couldn't play before noon on weekends.

        She had a lawyer write the club a letter. The club responded, paraphrasing here: “You are not a member. Your husband is. Therefore, we don't have to deal with you.”

        Kline took her cause to the state civil rights commission. After a three-year fight, she won. Looking back, Kline can't believe it was such a big deal. “It was a holdover of the way things always were,” she said Wednesday. “It's antiquated thinking.”

        As for the current battle, Kline says, “Somebody has to break the ground. Even if they'll never say (women) are equal, they have to treat them that way.”

        Debbie Kline got her way and the world kept turning. The guys kept playing at their appointed times; the women playing on the weekends didn't cause darkness to descend upon the club. It all worked out.

        Maybe that's the lesson for Augusta National. Probably, it should be.

        Tradition should be a soft scarf around your neck, comforting when the wind blows. It shouldn't be a noose. But do spare some small admiration for the green-coots, who have always shown their ideals are not negotiable.

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