The Royal & Ancient Golf Club voted overwhelmingly to allow women members into the 260-year-old club. Nearly 75% of the 2,400 male members took part in the historic vote and women were accepted by a landslide 85% of the tally.

Peter Dawson, secretary of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, announced that several women would be admitted in the very near future and not be put on the long waiting list of prospective members.

Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, discarded their men-only membership policy in 2012 and added two women members to that hallowed institution. That move seemed to pave the way for another of golf’s male bastions, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, to flow with the times and allow female members.

The R&A, which oversees the Open Championship, as well as, other international golf tournaments, was born from the Royal & Ancient Golf Club in 2004. The R&A, along with the United States Golf Association (USGA), are the rules-making bodies for the world of golf.

The R&A has been coming under pressure in recent years from tournament sponsors and media to discontinue holding the Open Championship at golf clubs in the United Kingdom that are not open to women members.

When the Ricoh Women’s British Open was held at St. Andrews in 2013, the club had to make an exception to allow the women access to the club and locker room.

As women have become equal partners in business, as well as, in the home, old traditions are rewritten, probably for the better.