AUGUSTA, Ga. – Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley said what many on the grounds last Saturday were thinking: The atmosphere and scene at the inaugural women’s amateur felt an awful lot like Masters Sunday.
“What I’m not sure I fully anticipated was the emotional response,” said Ridley, “which was something I’m still really glowing about.”
Ridley said that many members told him they’d never been prouder to be a member of Augusta National.
That being said, Ridley gave no indication of how the event might change going forward.
“As to what we might do next,” he said, “I’m still thinking about last Saturday. So I’ll start thinking about that next week.”
As for expanding Augusta’s tournament schedule to include a women’s professional event, Ridley said that historically the club’s efforts to promote the game outside of the Masters have always been on amateur golf and they don’t plan on steering off that track.
Along those lines, Ridley said one of the reasons they brought Champions Retreat into the fold was to be respectful of the Masters Tournament. They wanted the event to be decided on Augusta National but were cognizant of the fact the fact that the men’s event was only a few days away.
“So if you sort of put it in context with the Masters being the epicenter of our competitive tournament administration efforts,” said Ridley, “we do have some limitations as to what we could do, and we try to balance that in deciding how we can best deploy our resources for the good of the game, and in this case, the women’s game. I think that’s the approach we are going to continue to take.”
