Money is the impetus for LPGA Tour's xenophobic new language policy

[Harold Schiffman]

Money is the impetus for LPGA Tour's xenophobic new language policy

RANDY PHILLIPS
The Gazette


Thursday, August 28, 2008



The LPGA Tour wants to suspend players who can't speak English for two
years. What's next? Insisting in the future its members look like its
Tour poster beauty Natalie Gulbis? Golfweek magazine this week first
reported the Tour's new language policy and upon reading it the
thought was this was some kind of April Fools' joke, but the calendar
reminded us it was late August and yeah, that it also was 2008. The
next thought was, okay, what's the Tour's impetus for a policy that
seems draconian or xenophobic, or both?

The policy is aimed at the Tour's international, or foreign-born
players, of which there are 121 from 26 countries with the largest
contingent being 45 players from South Korea. Also worth noting is
that 16 of the top 20 on the Tour's money list are foreign-born,
comprised of eight South Koreans, two Australians, two Swedes, a
Norweigian, a Brazilian, a Taiwanese, and a Mexican who just happens
to be Lorena Ochoa, the No. 1 ranked player in the world. Golfweek's
Beth Ann Baldry reported on the magazine's web- site that the LPGA
held a meeting with the Tour's South Korean players last week before
the Safeway Classic where commissioner Carolyn Bivens issued what was
tantamount to a warning that if they, Tour members by virtue of having
already met the qualifying standards to play, didn't become conversant
in English, passing an oral evaluation, by the end of next year they
would face suspension.

The reason for such a drastic measure of course is money. The Tour is
concerned its non-English speaking stars lack appeal to corporate
sponsors, the Tour's lifeline financially and the only way it survive.
Libba Galloway, the Tour's deputy commissioner, has been front and
centre in the wake of the fallout from the policy becoming public and
put it this way to Larry Dorman of the New York Times:

"We live in a sports-entertainment environment. For an athlete to be
successful today in the sports entertainment world we live in, they
need to be great performers on and off the course, and being able to
communicate effectively with sponsors and fans is a big part of this.

"Being a U.S.-based tour, with the majority of our fan base, pro-am
contestants, sponsors and participants being English speaking, we
think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in
English."

To date, the LPGA has not received a single complaint from a sponsor
about the inability of one of its international players to express
herself without a translator. While Galloway's contention might
utlimately have some merit, the Tour becomes the only major
professional sports organization in the world with the need for such a
policy. All this despite being lauded for its global appeal with
tournaments held in Mexico, Singapore, Japan, France, England, Canada
and South Korea.

Suddenly, the ability to play great golf and shoot low scores is no
longer the only prerequisite to membership and we have to salute our
own Lorie Kane, the 12-year Tour veteran from Charlottetown, for
making the point that while she believes there is a need for everyone
to learn to communicate "whether or not you can communicate shouldn't
determine whether or not you have a card on the LPGA Tour."

Stay tuned folks, this is just starting to heat up.

LG Skins foursome: LG Skins Game two-time defending champion Stephen
Ames will be joined by Phil Mickelson, K.J. Choi and Rocco Mediate in
the

$1-million LG Skins Game at the Celebrity Course at the Indian Wells
Golf Resort in California, Nov. 29-30.

For the cause: The third annual Peter Gzowski Invitational Golf
Tournament to benefit adult literacy will be held Sept. 25 at Le
Diamant in Ste. Monique near Mirabel.

Founded by Gzowski, a Canadian writer and broadcaster who died in
2002, PGI golf tournaments across Canada have raised more than $10
million dollars to support adult literacy and this year's keynote
speaker and poet laureate will be Shelagh Rogers and Lorne Elliott,
respectively.

Proceeds go to the Quebec English Literacy Alliance to help coordinate
and fund literacy programs across the province. For more information
on the event call Phil Gribbin at 514-602-8214.

She said it: "I don't believe in taking steroids. I don't believe in
taking anything that enhances my ability to play golf. I've never done
that. I've always played fairly, and I think I should be rewarded for
that."

- LPGA Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez in the Boston Herald, revealing she
takes hydrochlorothiazed, a blood-pressure medication that is on the
Tour's list of banned substances because it can also be used as a
masking agent.

Lopez has submitted two "letters of necessity" from her doctor to the
Tour seeking a waiver for use of the medication, but has been denied.

rphillips at thegazette.canwest.com

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=2f739f73-6b95-43e0-a660-a1927824ccb6
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