The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) is calling on the PGA Tour and Masters Tournament to pull the upcoming event from Augusta National Golf Club in reaction to the recent passing of Georgia’s voter bill, SB 202.
The NBJC is also urging professional golfers to boycott playing in Georgia until the bill is repealed.
NBJC executive director David J. Johns said the law was created to restrict the voting rights of Black and disenfranchised voters in Georgia.
“Georgia’s new law restricting voting access is designed to turn back the clock on civil rights, and return Black and poor and already disenfranchised voters in Georgia to second class citizens,” Johns said in a statement provided to Golfweek. “This is an unacceptable attack on our democracy and companies that operate in Georgia must speak out against this restrictive law.
“The PGA Tour and Masters Tournament have both made commitments to help diversify golf and address racial inequities in this country — and we expect them to not only speak out against Georgia’s new racist voter suppression law — but to also take action.”
Ahead of the Masters Tournament last November, Augusta National — which has long had a reputation for exclusivity in its membership along gender and racial lines — announced it will establish scholarships in the name of first Black man to play in the Masters Tournament, Lee Elder, at Augusta’s Historically Black Paine College. It also invited him to be an honorary starter for the 2021 Masters along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.
The club began hosting the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019, the first women’s tournament held at Augusta National. It returns next month after being canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Joe Biden, who publicly condemned bills like the Georgia bill as “un-American” and “sick” in a news conference on Thursday, called the new Georgia voting law “an atrocity” on Friday.
“You don’t need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting,” Biden said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said HB 202, which he signed on Thursday, will make elections in Georgia “secure, accessible and fair.”
Among the changes in the 96-page bill, one of many GOP-backed election bills in across the country following the 2020 election, is a new requirement of a photo ID to vote absentee by mail after more than 1.3 million Georgians voted absentee during November’s election. The bill also cuts the time period voters have to request an absentee ballot, limits where ballot drop boxes can be placed and when they can be accessed.
“Professional golf should not reward Georgia’s attacks on democracy and voting rights with the millions of dollars in revenue that the tournament generates and the prestige it brings to the State,” Johns said. “We all must act to protect our democracy and the right to vote.”
Neither Augusta National nor the PGA Tour has publicly commented on the NBJC’s request.
This not the only movement in sports concerning the new legislation. The Hill and other media outlets are reporting that the 91st Major League Baseball All-Star Game, scheduled for July, could be moved from Atlanta after the state’s Republican-controlled state House passed the controversial voting law on Thursday.