Golf will return to the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo, and the host course just made a long-overdue move that will put an end to bad P.R. for the club and secure its status as the Olympic venue.
Kasumigaseki Country Club has been a men’s-only club for nearly 40 years, but it announced this week that it has granted three women full membership privileges. The moves comes on the heels of pressure from the International Olympic Committee, which wanted women members at the club once it was selected to host the competition. The IOC threatened to move to a different venue if the club didn’t change its policy.
The board reportedly made the change official this week while receiving no objections from members.
Kasumigaseki (seen below) reportedly had about 200 female “associate members,” or weekday members who weren’t allowed to play on Sundays. It’s the same club that President Donald Trump played with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — and Hideki Matsuyama — last November.
The 2020 Olympic competition will be the same 72-hole format that was used during golf’s return at the 2016 Games in Rio.
