Augusta National Golf Club opened its exclusive membership to women Monday for the first time in its 80-year history.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore will become the first women to join the Augusta, Georgia, club, Chairman Billy Payne said Monday in a statement.

"These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership," Payne said.

The issue of its formerly all-male membership has long dogged the private club and has at times threatened to overshadow the Masters Tournament, among golf's most prestigious events.

Women's rights activist Martha Burk put the issue in the spotlight in 2003, when she led a protest against the club and worked to put pressure on corporate leaders to withdraw their support for the organization and the Masters.

On Monday, she declared victory.

"My first reaction was, we won -- and we did," Burk said. "By we, I mean the women's movement and women in the United States, particularly those in business."

She said continued pressure from women's groups and corporate interests forced the club's hand. Activists over the last decade "facilitated a couple of sex discrimination suits against corporations whose CEOs are (Augusta National) members," Burk said, but she did not name any corporations or individuals.

Burk also pointed to the April controversy over the club's failure to admit IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, as it has past IBM leaders. Sponsoring the Masters usually guarantees membership to a company's officers. But Rometty had been ineligible because she is female.

"We gave them a pretty big black eye in April when they dissed Ginny Rometty and did not allow her in the club as they had all of the males preceding her as CEOs of IBM. And I think they knew they could not sustain it," she said.

At the time, White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama believed women should be admitted to the club.

Payne declined to comment on the issue then, and is not talking about it now outside of the statement issued by the club, according to club spokesman Steven Ethun.

In that statement, Payne said the decision marked a "significant and positive time" for Augusta National.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem lauded the decision.

"At a time when women represent one of the fastest growing segments in both playing and following the game of golf, this sends a positive and inclusive message for our sport," Finchem said in a statement.

He was far from alone in applauding Augusta National's decision.

Mitt Romney -- the Republican party's presumptive presidential nominee who, in April, had said that he'd admit women if he were in charge of the club -- offered congratulations on Twitter to both his friend Rice and Augusta National.

And Nancy Lieberman, a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who played parts of two seasons in a men's professional league, likewise cheered the move. "Congrts breaking thru #equality," she wrote on Twitter.

"Slowly but surely lots of crumbs ad up to a cake," wrote another women's sports pioneer, Billie Jean King.

Obama "welcomes the development" as well, Carney said Monday.