"The LPGA could lose some tremendous players if it's not careful."

As expected the initial reactions to Beth Ann Baldry's exclusive on the LPGA's new English-speaking requirement were not positive and raised several major questions. We'll get to those in a moment, but having 24 hours to sit on this it strikes me that the hypocrisy here is truly breathtaking. As the LPGA struggles to get sponsors and takes more and more events to Asia, they are instituted a racist policy that could ultimately weed out the number of South Korean players.

In the AP story (Doug Ferguson?), Angela Park says:

...born in Brazil of South Korean heritage and raised in the United States -- said the policy is fair and good for the tour and its international players.

"A lot of Korean players think they are being targeted, but it's just because there are so many of them," Park said.

Seon-Hwa Lee, the only Asian with multiple victories this year, said she works with an English tutor in the winter. Her ability to answer questions without the help of a translator has improved in her short time on tour.

"The economy is bad, and we are losing sponsors," Lee said. "Everybody understands."

Somehow I doubt that.

The USA Today's Steve DiMeglio talks to several folks and gets a variety of reactions. Ms. Chokinfreakindogs likes the policy.

"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.

The tour provides tutoring and language-learning software to its players and will work with those who fail the test.

"It's something that has been coming about gradually," said LPGA deputy commissioner Libba Galloway, who added that only a few of the organization's members can't speak English. "We're more of an international tour now, but we're an American-based tour and the players need the tools to interact with fans and sponsors. One of those tools is to speak English."

We're more of an international tour now but we're an American based tour. You sure that wasn't Yogi? DiMeglio also offers this:

No major U.S. sports leagues, however, require players to speak English. Nor do the PGA Tour or ATP.

"We are proud to have tournaments in 30 countries and players from over 100 competing in them and have no plans to impose a common language on them," ATP spokesman Kris Dent said.

Eunsook Lee, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium in Los Angeles, finds the new policy ironic coming on the heels of the Olympics, which she said were about fostering understanding. "It sounds like a step backward for golf," she said.

Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, said a language requirement could be in violation of state law.

"Florida law prohibits discrimination in public accommodations," he said. "They may well violate Florida discrimination laws because language is a key element of person's national origin. People should be judged on their ability to perform a job. English fluency has no more to do with the ability to play 18 holes of golf than whether you walk 18 holes or ride 18 holes."

Galloway, however, said the LPGA can stand its legal ground. "Organizations and businesses in general have the right to make requirements on skill sets necessary for their employers," she said. "We as a membership organization have the right to establish obligations that our members must adhere to in order to do the things fundamental to conduct our business."

Ah the skill sets...wonder when we'd get some corporatespeak in there. Are LPGA players employees? Who knew?

Garry Smits brings up this credibility killer for the LPGA Board:

The rule wouldn’t be in effect if the Executive Committee wasn’t on board. The LPGA Board of Directors has 18 members, 12 of them who are players. The PGA Tour, on the other hand, has a nine-member board, and only four are players. As a result, the LPGA board, by sheer numbers, speaks more to the will of the overall membership.

However, it should be noted that every one of the 12 players on the board is American. Despite having the second-largest demographic group on the LPGA (behind Americans), there are no South Koreans on the board.

Lorne Rubenstein writes:

It makes sense that players who don't speak English should try to learn the language. Most players do try, and the LPGA makes the Rosetta Stone language-training program available to its members. But it can take a long time to get comfortable in a foreign language. My wife taught college English for nearly 30 years, often to people for whom English was a second or third language. A certain percentage of these students never became fluent in English, no matter how hard they worked. Canada and the United States are full of immigrants who can't speak English after years of taking lessons.

Smacking a two-year time period on golfers to learn English, then, smacks of xenophobia in the extreme. The idea is offensive, and its implementation is sure to generate hostility and anxiety.

The LPGA could lose some tremendous players if it's not careful. Imagine a scenario where a player who can't speak English to LPGA standards wins a major championship in her rookie year. She has two years to learn English or face suspension. She doesn't learn it, and she's suspended. The LPGA says it will provide tutoring and then do another evaluation, but there are no guarantees the lessons will take.

Ouch. Oh he's not done.

It's an American tour? The LPGA is in Canada, Singapore, Mexico, France, England, South Korea and Japan. Should Paula Creamer have to speak Korean if she plays in South Korea? Should Natalie Gulbis have to speak Spanish if she plays the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico come November?

The fault isn't with players who can't speak English. They are who they are. The LPGA is running scared. It needs to embrace golf as a global game and welcome foreign players, including those who don't speak English.

Instead, the LPGA Tour is threatening those players. When it comes to players who don't speak English "properly," it appears LPGA should stand for "Ladies, Please Go Away." Just watch the blowback from this one.

The OC Register's Mark Whicker adds...

But Fernando Valenzuela hardly ever did an organized interview in English. Vladimir Guerrero doesn't do them now, and neither does Bartolo Colon or Ichiro Suzuki. Neither do K.J. Choi or Shigeki Maruyama on the PGA Tour.

It's not that they can't speak English. Most of them can at least fake it. They just don't want to be ridiculed because they can't speak smoothly in the American vernacular. They also fear saying something impolitic or inaccurate. As we all can. Hey, even Joe Biden sprains his tongue.

The American players are fully behind the English rule. They figure that if the Koreans are learning proper verb conjugation, they won't be practicing as much and, therefore, beating American brains out every week.

And Lori Kane becomes one of the first players to question the policy:

 "I am of a strong belief that, yes, we need to learn to communicate," Kane, a 12-year tour veteran, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. "But whether or not you can communicate shouldn't determine whether or not you have a card on the LPGA Tour."