CLUB FOLKLORE

HOOTIE AND THE GOLF FISH

April 11 The Entrance

ESG&EC President, Per-Ulrik "Hootie" Fatcatsson, maintains there will be a female member at his club one day.  It just won't be because Max "The Padre" Wood said there should be one.  It won't be because R&A associates planned to protest outside the tournament next month.  And it won't be over his dead body.  "If I drop dead right now, our position will not change," Fatcatsson said. "It's not my issue alone." 

Fatcatsson, a softly spoken, 47-year-old, southern suburbs father of two daughters, has gained international notoriety for his refusal to buckle to pressure from women's groups, and sections of the media, and invite a woman to join the world's most exclusive golf club.  His final, unprompted statement at a pre-World Series news conference was intended to make the point that he was not some lone, arch-conservative bending the club policy to suit his will.  What he managed to convey, unintentionally, was that he was just the public face of a pack of similarly minded, beer guzzling, euchre playing arch-conservatives who have put the tournament's reputation on the line because they refuse to be told what to do.  Not by anybody.  "I won't tell Max how to say Mass if he doesn't tell us how to run our private club," said Fatcatsson, when asked if Wood's very circumspect legal and religious opinion that Earlwood should have a female member carried any weight.

At the start of his widely anticipated press conference, Fatcatsson had said he would not take questions on the issue of female membership because "everything that could be said has been said on the issue".  "We are a group getting together periodically for camaraderie, just as thousands of clubs and organisations do all over Sydney," he said.  "Just because we host golf and euchre tournaments, because some of our members are well known, should not cause us to be viewed differently."

But Hootie's club, and their major tournament itself, has been viewed differently since women's rights activists wrote to him in June last year asking that he consider inviting a female member.  The problem for ESG&EC, and the World Series was that Fatcatsson's brusque reply that the club would not change its opinion "at the point of a bayonet" gave the issue legs.  The ESG&EC cast itself as an obdurate old-boys club.

Quickly cajoled into taking questions, Fatcatsson did not profess any regrets about his role in the debate.  With the support of his members, the local public and many in the golf world, Fatcatsson continues to defend the all-male membership on the basis the ESG&EC is a private club.  "Just because we present two world-class sporting events a year doesn't affect our private club status," he said.

But, more than club privacy, what Hootie also purports to protect is the right of men and women to congregate separately.  Typically, he used a homely tale about his wife to illustrate his point that occasional gender segregation is not merely preferable, but what nature intended.

"It's been going on for centuries and centuries that men like to get together with men every now and then and women like to get together with women every now and then," said Fatcatsson.

So when will women be getting together with just women at the World Series?  "I can't speculate on what might happen in 20 years," he said when asked if there would be a female member by then.  Having released its major sponsors to protect them from potential boycotts, the World Series is being shown commercial-free on pay television.  Fatcatsson said the tournament could continue indefinitely without endorsement and that its traditional donations to charity would not be affected.

Despite the intense media attention the issue has attracted, Fatcatsson said the tournament's reputation had not been harmed.  "Well, it's been maligned but I don't think it's been damaged," he said.  "We've come through much bigger controversies than this before.  Remember the Pavin-Hemosteros euchre table pissing duel or Big Jack's tragic impersonation of Father Up - a swearing, beer drinking priest betting the local church's plate collection on the last favourite at Wyong one day.  With a male only club, our reputation remains teflon-coated."

Like Popes, ESG&EC Presidents tend to be become senile and die in office.  Despite the controversy, it is likely Fatcatsson's reign will continue – perhaps even long enough for him to greet the first woman member.  "You're not going to get rid of me any time soon," he said.