Pine Valley, welcome to 2021.
The board of America’s top-ranked golf course voted unanimously to allow female members for the first time in its 108-year history.
The New Jersey club announced the news to its members Friday in an email obtained by Golf Digest.
In the e-mail, club president Jim Davis wrote that Pine Valley would immediately begin considering women for membership and that he expects to have the club’s first women members admitted by the end of the year. Previously, women were only permitted to play the course as guests on Sunday afternoons.
Golf clubs have notoriously been reticent to embrace gender equality.
Augusta National, home to the Masters, didn’t start accepting female members until 2012.
In his letter to Pine Valley club members, Davis categorized the move to embrace women members as long overdue, adding that the change will put the golf course “on the right side of history.”