(ATR) The Kasumigaseki Country Club has decided that hosting golf at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is more important than continuing to exclude women as full members.
The club decided on Monday to change its bylaws at an extraordinary board meeting after being told last month by the IOC that women must be allowed full membership or the Olympic tournament cannot be played there.
The vote means that women will now be allowed to play on Sundays and will be eligible for full membership.
"We welcome the decision of the Executive Board of the Kasumigaseki Country Club to change its membership regulations in favor of full gender equality," IOC vice president and chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for Tokyo 2020 John Coates said in a statement to Around the Rings.
"We can now look forward to a great Olympic golf tournament at Kasumigaseki Country Club at Tokyo 2020. As we have said all along, gender equality is a fundamental principle of the Olympic Movement and an important part of Olympic Agenda 2020, and we believe this decision now reflects this."
Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori echoed those sentiments in a statement of his own.
"We are pleased to learn that the Kasumigaseki Country Club voted today... to amend the club's membership policy in keeping with the spirit of the Olympic Charter.
"I'd like to extend my gratitude to the members of the club for their understanding and cooperation. I also would like to express my admiration for the club's endeavor to come to an agreement in such a short period of time."
Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Yuriko Koike, the first woman elected to that post, raised the issue last year. That triggered a statement from the IOC in January that the Olympic venue had to abide by the Olympic Charter prohibition against discrimination in any form.
Officials at Kasumigaseki met last month to consider the request, but announced no timetable then about what might be next.
Monday's decision by Kasumigaseki comes less than a week after the membership of Muirfield, founded in 1744, voted to accept women members by an overwhelmingly majority. The ballot by the members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers followed a vote last May which narrowly defeated the change in rules.
The exclusion of women prompted the R&A to remove the course in East Lothian from the list of courses allowed to host the Open Championship. Within hours after the vote on March 14, the R&A put Muirfield back on the list, possibly for the 2022 Open
In 1992, Atlanta Olympics President Billy Payne tried to convince the IOC to include golf at the 1996 Olympics using the fabled Augusta National Club, home of The Masters. The proposal never got far, with the exclusion of women as members essentially killing the idea with the IOC. It wasn’t until 2012 that women were invited to join the ultra-exclusive club in east Georgia.
Written by Gerard Farek
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