Five Families Exempt Olympic Gold Medal Winners Who Will Probably Already Be Exempt Anyway

The leaders of five of golf's six families convened for a press conference in Augusta to reaffirm their support for the Olympics and to announced that the Olympic Gold Medal winners will earn spots into the Masters, U.S. Open, The Open, PGA, ANA Inspiration, KPMG Women's PGA, U.S. Women's Open and Women's British Open. Rex Hoggard with the details at GolfChannel.com.

The winner will almost surely be exempt, but just in case there is a shock winner of the gold from far down the world ranking list, they are covered. It wasn't press conference worthy, except for the enjoyably awkward no-show by the PGA Tour, which unintentionally reaffirmed The Players as a non-major by tabling a decision until they could get Policy Board together to vote.

The PGA Tour's statement:

PGA TOUR statement on Olympic eligibility category for golf’s major championships

We applaud the major championships in the men's and women's games in making this decision. From the very beginning, every organization in the game of golf, including the PGA TOUR, has been dedicated to making the Olympic golf competition a significant and important event in our sport. Creating an eligibility category into golf's major championships for the winner of the Olympic golf competitions demonstrates that commitment and is a very meaningful step in the continuation of that process.

With respect to eligibility into The PLAYERS Championship for the winner of the men's Olympic golf competition, we have a different process than that of the major championships with respect to our regulations and eligibility categories and we will be initiating that process with our Policy Board and Players Advisory Council in the coming weeks.