Progress came to Augusta National on Wednesday in the unlikely guise of a 65-year-old real estate lawyer from Tampa, Florida. Fred Ridley took over as chairman of Augusta National last August, and his first major initiative is a new tournament for the world’s best female amateurs. It starts next year, when it will be held on the Saturday before the Masters starts, 6 April. It will be the first women’s competition held at the course. It was only six years ago that the club finally allowed women to become members – now it is opening itself up to female players, too. Augusta National has finally made it to the 21st century, 18 years late.

This isn’t equality. The club is not starting a women’s Masters. The competition is for amateurs rather than professionals, and only the last round will be held at Augusta National; the two before it will be at the nearby Champions Retreat. But change comes awful slow at Augusta. And by the pace things move around here, this is a leap forward. And there is more to come, too. Ridley also promised that there “will be more women members at Augusta National”. The club does not publish a membership list but in 2012, when it first allowed women in, it only had two female members.

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One was Condoleezza Rice, who says that the only bad experience she has had here was on her very first day playing, when all the members came out to watch her hit her first drive.

Rice was delighted by Ridley’s idea. “I’ve said many times that our country’s is a story of great institutions evolving and becoming more inclusive over time, and this is one of our great institutions,” she said. “It’s going to be great for the women’s game and it’s going to be great for Augusta. I’m really proud. My first thought was excitement, not for me, but for the young women. I can already picture the smiles on their faces.”

Ridley is the seventh chairman of Augusta National, but the club has only had one ruler, Clifford Roberts, who co-founded it with Bobby Jones in the early 1930s. Roberts served as chairman right through to 1976. He died in 1977, but no one has done anything here since without worrying about what his ghost would think of it. Which meant that until 2012 women were not welcome. It was only 15 years ago that one of Ridley’s predecessors as chairman, Hootie Johnson, found himself in a scrap over exactly that with Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women’s Organisations. Burk accused Augusta National of sexism. And with good reason.

Johnson responded that the club would not be made to change its policies “at the point of a bayonet”. Two of Augusta National’s members resigned because they disagreed with his position. But Johnson was so bull-headed about it that he even decided the Masters would be broadcast without any TV commercials in both 2003 and 2004, just to protect its corporate sponsors from criticism. The club has so much money that it could afford to do without for a couple of years, just to make the point that it was not going to let Burk, or anyone else, tell it what to do.

It was Johnson’s successor, Billy Payne, who finally relented in 2012, which is how Rice came to be a member. Payne also started the Drive, Chip, Putt championship, to try to increase youth participation. Ridley says his new tournament is “an extension of that same mission”. As he sees it, Roberts’s principle was that the club should “explore new and impactful ways to impact the game of golf”.

Ridley is unusual, too, in that he was such a good player himself. He won the US Amateur, and is the first chairman of the club who actually played in the Masters himself, in 1976, 77, and 78. Which makes him well equipped to take on the other pressing problem facing the sport, how best to protect courses from the professional game’s big-hitters. The distance report recently published by the USGA and R&A showed that the average drive across the seven worldwide tours had increased by another three yards since 2016.

Which means that at Augusta the course just does not play the way Jones intended. Ridley was plain about that. “There’s a great quote from Bobby Jones dealing specifically with the 13th hole, which has been lengthened over time,” Ridley said. “He said that the decision to go for the green in two should be a momentous one. And I would have to say that our observations of these great players hitting middle and even short irons into that hole is not a momentous decision.

“And so we think there is an issue, not only there, but in the game generally, that needs to be addressed.”

Only no one agrees what the solution should be. Ridley said he did not think “that additional length should be the immediate or only reaction”, because “we do not want any action to be taken that’s going to make golf harder, we have an obligation to grow the game, and so we’re sensitive to that”.

By Augusta National’s standards, Ridley sounds like a radical. “I hope with this announcement today you have a pretty good idea of part of what my mission is,” he said. “Golf’s a great game. Hopefully it’s blind to colour and it’s blind to gender.”

It is not, and never has been, least of all around here. But it has just got a little closer to it.