Women at the Helm #2 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Written by Mel Sole on May 16, 2015. Posted in Business Golf

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This is the second in our series of “Women at the Helm.”

Our first was Molly Solomon, 10-time Emmy Award winner and longtime NBC Olympics producer. She became the first woman to serve as executive producer for a national sports network in 2012. Today Condoleezza Rice is our “Woman at the Helm.” Not only for her accomplishments as the first female African-American secretary of state and as President Bush’s National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that position. But her achievement of becoming the first female golfer admitted to being a member at Augusta National.

Since its inception, this made headline news, as Augusta has fought tooth and nail to stay a male sanctuary. We thank Elizabeth Burmiller for writing for the NY Times for this compelling article.

Women at the Helm #2 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State, is also a former competitive ice skater and a serious tennis player. Ms. Rice began golfing seven years ago.

Condoleezza Rice has lived a life of firsts: first black woman to be Secretary of State, first black woman to be national security adviser, and the first African-American, first woman, and youngest person to be provost of Stanford University.

On Monday, she added another first when she became one of the first two female members admitted to Augusta National Golf Club. The home of the Masters tournament has excluded women as members throughout its 80-year history. The other new member is Darla Moore, a South Carolina financier and philanthropist who was on the cover of Fortune in 1997 as “The Toughest Babe in Business.”

For Rice, now a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, the membership reflects a competitiveness that she has brought to athletic and academic pursuits throughout her 57 years. A former competitive ice skater and a serious tennis player, Rice began golfing only seven years ago, on a vacation with family members to the Greenbrier. A resort in West Virginia. But she has thrown herself into the sport with her typical drive.

“I don’t like anything that’s ‘just an escape,’ ” Rice told Golf Digest in an interview last year.

“To me, the best part of golf is that unlike my tennis game, I can actually get better. I’ve probably reached my plateau in tennis. But in golf, I have a lot of room for improvement.

I really enjoy working on my game, like practicing and I chart my rounds.”

Rice declined all interview requests Monday, but family and friends said she had played golf with far greater frequency since she left office as Secretary of State at the end of President George W. Bush’s administration in 2009.

To read the full article on Condoleezza Rice, click here.

Source: Elizabeth Burmiller NY Times

Pictures: NY Times U.S. Embassy New Delhi

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Women at the Helm #2 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

This is the second in our series of “Women at the Helm.”

Condoleezza Rice has lived a life of firsts: first black woman to be Secretary of State, first black woman to be national security adviser, and the first African-American, first woman, and youngest person to be provost of Stanford University.

“I don’t like anything that’s ‘just an escape,’ ” Rice told Golf Digest in an interview last year.

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