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The Country Club votes to admit women

By   |   June 29, 1989

BROOKLINE, Mass. -- The Country Club, the 107-year-old playground for Boston's elite, traded some tradition for liberation Wednesday night and voted to accept its first full-time women members, officials said.

Club officials, seeking to minimize publicity on the issue, confirmed only that the vote was in favor of the motion and declined to describe the debate or the circumstances that led up to it.

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'It's nothing that's news. It's just something that the club is doing on its own,' said club general manager David Chag, who declined even to reveal the number of members. 'It's a private club, and it's just something that we're handling within the club.'

Some newer members, however, described the vote as overruling long-time members who feared the idea as a 'revolutionary' change for the club, a leisure time retreat for Boston's inner circles since 1882.

The Country Club, located in the affluent suburb of Brookline just outside Boston city limits, was most recently in the national spotlight last summer when it hosted the U.S. Open golf tournament.

Until the vote, women were allowed to join as associate members but were barred from joining as full-time members with voting privileges.

The club initiated the action and was not under direct pressure created by a ruling in Boston where the city's licensing board outlawed sex discrimination at several exclusive downtown clubs.