Augusta National Welcomes 10-Time Major Winner As Its Newest Member

One of the best female golfers in history has reportedly been fitted for a green jacket at the most exclusive golf club on the planet.

According to Golfweek, Annika Sorenstam became a member of Augusta National Golf Club earlier this month when the world-famous location opened for the new season. 

Traditionally, the home of The Masters has included only the most powerful and richest men in the world on its full members list while awarding an honorary seat at the table to the winners of its 87 previous tournaments. But 91 years after beginning as a male-only club, Augusta National welcomed Sorenstam as the first LPGA Tour pro to slide on a green jacket as a bonafide member.

Having also broken a 63-year streak between a woman featuring in a PGA Tour event - Sorenstam teed it up at the 2008 Bank of America Colonial - the Swede later acted as a first-tee starter during the 2019 Augusta Women’s National Amateur.

The 53-year-old - who has 10 Majors and 83 other Tour victories to her name - is believed to have followed in the footsteps of former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and South Carolina financier, Darla Moore - who were the first female members ever accepted at the Georgia-based society by then-chair Billy Payne.

Augusta has always tried to maintain the privacy of its membership, and therefore very little is known about those who have joined or how someone is accepted. But given the first female member arrived as recently as 2012, it can be safely assumed that Sorenstam is one of very few women among the circa-300 figure club.

Since then, other confirmed female members at ANGC have included; Virginia “Ginni” Rometty (former IBM CEO), Diana Murphy (former USGA president), Heidi Ueberroth (co-chair of Pebble Beach Co.), and Ana Botin (executive chair of the Santander Group).

At his pre-Masters tournament press conference in 2022, a decade after the first female member was admitted and almost 20 years after women’s activist Martha Burk - from the National Council of Women’s Organizations - first campaigned about the lack of women members, Augusta National’s current chair Fred Ridley admitted the decision to move towards equality had been long overdue.

Ridley said: “I don’t know about you, but when anything happens or any idea that you had turns out well and you’re pleased about it, initiative, whatever, you might always say, well, why didn’t we do that sooner? And that’s a fair, that’s a fair thought. And so I wish – I wish we had have.”

He added: “Women members are a very important part of our membership, and you will continue to see over the years, if you look, more green jackets that are women. I’m going to make sure of that.

“We have a number of women members who we are delighted are part of our organization. I think you know, certainly, who some of them are. They have been great contributors to our organization, both I would say substantively and things they are doing to help us, both with the Masters and otherwise.”