The controversy regarding Augusta National's all-male membership has taken yet another turn.
The club released results Wednesday of a survey it commissioned and said they indicated most people agree that Augusta National can set its own membership policies as a private club.
The national poll, conducted by Washington-based The Polling Company Inc. and WomenTrend, reported that 60 percent of the 800 people surveyed agreed that Augusta National should retain its membership policy. Seventy-four percent said the club "has the right to have members of one gender only."
Harry O'Neill, chairman of the polling review board of the National Council of Public Polls, said the poll included "terribly loaded questions" with "emotionally loaded words."
"They would serve themselves much better if they had done a more succinct survey without any questions that were obviously biased or loaded in their wording," O'Neill said.
Martha Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations called the poll a "sort of an amateurish attempt to bolster their position against women."
"Seventy percent of the people in this country do not support sex discrimination," Burk said.
Burk also said Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson "has got just enough of a kernel of truth to be able to convince some people on this business about being within his legal rights. He has succeeded in getting some people to view this as a Friday night poker game in their basement."
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