LPGA hopes language policy makes players more accessible

[Harold Schiffman]

LPGA hopes language policy makes players more accessible


After playing the third round in the 2006 Florida's Natural Charity
Championship, South Korean rookie Kyeong Bae and her father drove 400
miles from the LPGA tour event in Georgia to her Lakeland, Fla., home.
Soon after arriving at her doorstep, Bae wanted to find out how much
money she had won and called up a Korean golf website. She learned she
had won nothing. The tournament was a 72-hole event.

Barely able to speak or read English at the time, Bae had misread
tournament information given to the players and thought it was a
54-hole tournament. So she and her father got in the car and drove the
400 miles back to Georgia. Tired after the overnight trip, Bae
nonetheless shot a 68 in the final round to finish in a tie for 13th
place and win $21,500.

"That's why I don't think this is an overall bad thing," Dottie
Pepper, the former LPGA star and current golf analyst, said of the
LPGA tour's new policy requiring its member golfers to speak English
or face suspension. "And I think it also can really help the players
become more comfortable in the environment they play."

The LPGA policy says players who have been on the tour for two years
can be suspended if they fail an oral evaluation of their English
proficiency starting at the end of the 2009 season.

 http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/lpga/2008-08-26-language-policy_N.htm

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