A group of would-be Olympian women ski jumpers are suing organisers of the Vancouver Winter Olympics because they believe they’re being discriminated against. Meanwhile, the debate rages on over why riders like Victoria Pendleton are unfairly treated because the women’s track cycling programme at the summer games doesn’t mirror quite so purely the men’s in the way it does at the sport’s World Championships.

Against this background no one can pretend that the issue of gender discrimination isn’t at the forefront of the minds of our Lords of the Rings.

Which brings me on to golf.
               
Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie and Tiger Woods are among 18 players to have sent letters supporting golf’s bid for inclusion in the 2016 Olympic programme.
 
The campaign is being organised by the International Golf Federation whose joint secretary, Peter Dawson, has described it as “imperative that the best players support our effort.”
               
As well as their letters, the players have also included a so-called dossier which boasts information on such things as the global popularity of the game – we are informed that 60 million people play golf in almost 120 countries.
               
Dawson’s dossier informing us why golf should be granted Olympic status runs to 32 pages. Now, in not many more than 320 words, I’ll tell you why unless the game addresses a fundamental iniquity it shouldn’t be.
               
Allow me first to lay bare my love of golf. I’ve played it for more than 30 years and, if pushed, will admit to enjoying it more than my other sporting passions, rugby and athletics.
 
I would also be something less than honest if I claimed I hadn’t before mumbled the odd profanity when stuck on the outward nine behind a women’s fourball which has no apparent inclination to speed up or wave me through. Those slow and ludicrously exaggerated practice swings. And not just one of them, but often two, before she eventually shuffles herself towards the ball, addresses it, pauses, pauses again, and then hits … not very far.
               
Getting stuck behind the ladies can be a painful experience. But no reasonable person would question their right to be there.
               
Unless, that is, you are a member of a men-only club. Places like the most prestigious club in my part of the world, the Notts Golf Club, which doesn’t admit women. If you’re female and you want to play at Hollinwell you have to join the Notts Ladies club which shares the links.
 
Further afield, what about Royal St George’s in Kent? It is one of the most famous of Open Championship venues yet is men-only and only allows women on the course as visitors and only then if they are accompanied by a club member (who is inevitably male). The course doesn’t even have ladies’ tee markers.
 
And then there’s the Augusta National with its apartheid history which fought tooth and nail for half-a-century to retain a whites-only membership. The club that runs the tournament that is regarded by many aficionados as the most prestigious of the four Majors eventually caved in 20 years ago and allowed its first black member to cross the threshold. In 2009, there are now a handful of black members at the home of the Masters.
 
But how many women are members at Augusta? The answer is none.
 
And what of the Royal & Ancient, the golf club of golf clubs, the governing body that sets all the rules, and which overlooks the Old Course at St Andrews? The home of golf is where Mary Queen of Scots once teed off. More than 500 years later, the R&A has yet to greet its first lady member.
 
If that’s an anomaly that irks the International Olympic Committee then all they have to do is contact Mr Dawson directly. His day job is running the R&A where he’s the chief executive.
 
Later this year, golf will learn if it has won its campaign to be introduced to the 2016 Olympic Games. 
 
Unless the game initiates fundamental change in the meantime, I can’t think of anything less appropriate.  
 
Martin Gillingham represented Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic Games and 1987 World Championships at the 400 metres hurdles. Since retiring from the track he spent 12 years in South Africa where he was a radio talk show presenter and writer for a Sunday newspaper. He returned to the UK in 2003 and can now be heard commentating on athletics for Eurosport as well as rugby for Sky Sports, ITV and Setanta.