AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National has gotten plenty wrong over the years.

This time they got it right.

In announcing the creation of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, which will make its debut in 2019, first-year club chairman Fred Ridley shook up what is normally the quietest day of Masters week, unveiling the culmination of a stunning, and secret, five-month plan. While the news is both rich in irony and ripe for skepticism, standing as it does in such contrast to the decades of sexist entrenchment that used to turn these Wednesday chairman’s updates into verbal warfare over Augusta’s ban on female members, it is richly significant too, as meaningful a step forward for women’s golf and sporting equality as anything in recent memory.

This time next year, the top 30 of the 72 female amateur golfers standing after two days of stroke play at nearby Champions Retreat Golf Club will make the move to Augusta and contest their final round on Augusta’s lush greens and amid its blooming azaleas. This time next year, on Saturday, April 6, to be exact, the faces of those female golfers will beam across our television sets and dance across our smartphone screens on a course we’ve only ever watched men play, a living, breathing testament to opportunity.

And to evolution.

Because this time 15 years ago, it seemed women in general, never mind women golfers, would never find their place at Augusta, not as Martha Burk was organizing protests against exclusionary membership and Hootie Johnson was insisting change would not come “at the point of a bayonet.’’

Because this time 10 years ago, it seemed women golfers would never be included in the club’s self-avowed mission, not as Johnson’s successor Billy Payne would talk of Augusta’s mandate to “grow the game’’ while somehow believing he could do that by ignoring half of the world’s population.

Heck, because this time seven years ago, I couldn’t even follow Rory McIlroy into the clubhouse, not when an ill-advised security guard refused to believe a female reporter was permitted to join her male colleagues beyond that locker-room door.

But credit goes where credit is due, and with Ridley in charge, Augusta National has changed. With Ridley in charge, the wisdom of a 65-year-old father of three daughters has made it a mission to use the considerable optic power of Augusta to advance rather than thwart the mission of equality.

With Ridley in charge, the bayonet is sheathed, the olive branch extended.

“I just felt that there was an opportunity and a platform to make a statement as to how we feel about this part of the game. I just felt it was time to do that,’’ Ridley said. “I met with our senior staff in October and said that I thought that this was the right time to do this. It was the right time for the women’s game. I wanted to do this, and I wanted to do it here. I thought for us to have the greatest impact on women’s golf that we needed to be committed to do it here at Augusta National, and I also wanted to be able to tell all of you about it today.’’

Tell it he did, without fuss and without fanfare, but shifting the sports world’s tectonic plates nonetheless. While he may have been gracious enough to honor the recent passing of his predecessor Johnson early in his opening remarks, it was this subsequent announcement that did so much more to erase the stained, sexist legacy Johnson was once so insistent on preserving.

Change had started under Payne, who oversaw the admission of both Condoleeza Rice and Darla Moore to its membership rolls, and who made sure events such as First Tee and the national Drive, Chip & Putt contest were equally open to boys and girls. But it would stall too, with Payne insisting only two years ago that Augusta’s calendar simply wouldn’t allow for the addition of another (read: women’s) event.

Yet here we are, amid a seemingly endless rinse-and-repeat cycle of #metoo horror stories, celebrating a decision done on Augusta’s own accord, completed after the power brokers actually heard the opinion of the opposite side, considered its merits, and ultimately, took it on board.

“Our country is a story of our great institutions evolving and becoming more inclusive,’’ said the former Secretary of State Rice, who stood in the back of the room for Ridley’s announcement. “This is one of those great institutions. It’s evolved and become more inclusive.

“What a great idea.’’

As Ridley said, “This championship will become an exciting edition to the Masters week, and it furthers our effort to promote the sport and inspire young women to take up the game. And, now, just imagine the 40 girls who come here each year for the Drive, Chip & Putt national finals will be able to dream about returning here one day to compete on a much grander stage for another impressive title.’’

What a beautiful idea. Take a moment to see it through the eyes of Annika Sorenstam, one of the greatest women golfers of all time, who also stood at the back of the room Wednesday.

“As a little girl, knowing that you have a chance to play on the greatest stage in golf?’’ she said. “That would have sent me to the range.’’

Who knows who might head out to the range after next year’s remarkable Saturday, and who knows what might still be in store for a women’s game that can suddenly envision a professional women’s Masters someday too. The amateur winner won’t get a trademark green jacket, with Ridley promising only “a very distinctive award’’ that will be “very, very nice.’’

But make no mistake. This small green seed has been planted. At Augusta National. Who saw that coming?

Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.