The Olympics (possibly) coming to Boston and selecting a site for the tournament (assuming golf is still part of the Olympics) are two separate issues aren't they. One a lot more complicated than the other.
Having attended the Atlanta Olympics and worked on the Sydney Games, I was quite surprised by the lack of gridlock in each city during the Games.. Sydney almost resembled a ghost town on certain days.. and when crowds did assemble they mostly came by public transport and left in an orderly manner. Atlanta's famed traffic jams, which usually hit their peak at the intersection of i75/i85, about a mile or so away from Turner Field, were also mostly absent.. It's almost like the Games scares off anyone who is not a competitor, IOC official, volunteer or amateur boxing aficionado.
Whatever infrastructure was built for these Games seems to have been mostly integrated into the city's facilities... The Braves got a new baseball stadium, so that worked out well for them.. Stadium Australia took over from the SCG and the Football Stadium in Moore Park as the premier venue for big football matches of every code. Boston does not have a professional sports team that needs something the scale of an Olympic Stadium. There has been some talk about downsizing the Olympic Stadium into a permanent home for the Revolution nearer to Boston than their current home at Gillette Stadium. That would be a sensible idea if it can be pulled off. The Revs would need a 40,000 seat stadium max...
The newish Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, on first appearance, seems to be a caricature of the kind of Irish kid who would be throwing bricks through bus windows in Southie. I had the opportunity to speak with him at an event last year, however, and he impressed me as a thoroughly modern guy in tune with the people and ideas of this city.. He wants the Games, but recognizes he also needs the support of the residents to make it happen... it will be interesting to see the politicking around this issue between him and Charlie Baker over the next year before it goes to a vote.. As long as Martha Coakley doesn't come out in support of the Games, it still has a chance of happening in Boston..
On the matter of tournament venue... Tokyo will probably do a decent job hosting the event at an existing course.. which would probably be a better guide for Boston than what they are doing down in Rio..The 2020 Tokyo site (Kasumigaseki Country Club) is approximately 45 miles from downtown Tokyo, so if that's the radius the IOC is working with, it brings other courses into consideration, but only the TPC Boston has the infrastructure to handle a tournament of this scale. Depending on dates, that would throw the Deutsche Bank tournament scheduling into doubt for that year as well.
The resistance of The Country Club to this scale of event has more to do with the logistics outside the club.. They were fairly happy to host the 2013 Amateur.. But it attracted crowds of no more than 5,000 on any one day, with very little corporate presence.. There is simply nowhere to put the vehicles once you run out of spots at BC and other colleges in the area.. the Putterham Meadows arrangement was a disaster for the club.. so they would need some relief on that front before they stepped up to the plate.
Unlike the Tokyo Games course, which will undergo a renovation and lengthening with Tom Fazio, TCC had some work done to the Championship course prior to the 2013 Amateur, so very little needs to be done to make the venue tournament-ready..