Pyeongchang: Olympics chief Thomas Bach on Friday said the Japanese club picked to host golf at Tokyo 2020 will soon review its controversial ban on full women’s membership.
Bach, who reiterated his threat to take the Olympic golf elsewhere, said he was hopeful that the Kasumigaseki Country Club would opt for “non-discrimination”.
“We were pleased to hear that the executive board of this golf club is meeting in the next couple of days to discuss this issue and to hopefully then grant the same rights to women as for men,” Bach told media in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“Should it be taken in another way, should gender equality not be respected, then we would look for another venue which would ensure non-discrimination,” he added.
Kasumigaseki’s club chairman has previously insisted he was baffled by complaints over its women’s policy.
Earlier this week, Scotland’s prestigious Muirfield club voted to allow women members, ditching a rule which had stood for 273 years.
The Masters, meanwhile, with its famed azaleas, precisely manicured greens and towering trees is bigger than any one golfer, even Tiger Woods.
With the first major of the year three weeks away, Woods is still nursing an ailing back and his chances of teeing it up at Augusta National, where he is a four-time winner, do not look promising.
Even if Woods does play, his chances of making the halfway cut and playing on the weekend appear bleak.
But sports industry analysts say an absence of Woods from Augusta National will not have nearly as much of an impact as in 2014 when, as the world’s top-ranked golfer, he missed the Masters for the first time.
“Everybody knows the course. It’s just so gorgeous and there’s so many famous holes there that people can’t wait to see,” Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing expert at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco, told Reuters.
“So as long as it’s competitive and you’ve got a couple of big-name players in there on the weekend I think they are going to get solid ratings.”
Former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said: “We’re dealing with a unique property, tradition unlike any other. And while 10 years ago our audience would be surprised if Tiger was not playing I think given his history over the last year and a half that the audience would be pleasantly surprised if he does play.
“The young professionals who have collectively taken Tiger’s place — Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, among others — certainly have a following and they will bring a substantial audience to Augusta whether or not Tiger plays.”
