Juli Inkster For Commissioner!

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When the LPGA inevitably cans Carolyn Bivens, I'd nominate Juli Inkster for the Commish job. Or at least a board seat.

From Doug Ferguson's AP notes column comes this wisdom that might have prevented the learn-English-or-your-outta-here disaster:

“The Asian players ... it’s kind of a respect thing, a pecking order thing,” Inkster said. “They are brought up to really honor their roots and their grandparents, and the people before them, and the higher-ups. So all of a sudden, you put an 18- or 19-year-old girl that’s maybe not really comfortable with her English.
“Playing with four CEOs — men or women — she is not going to feel comfortable going up there and making small talk. That’s not the way they are brought up.”

ADT "Declines To Extend" LPGA Deal

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Well, I guess this will prevent anyone from asking if ADT will be back to sponsor next year's LPGA finale...

ADT declines to extend sponsor relationship
 
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Oct. 16, 2008 -- The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), owner and operator of the ADT Championship event in West Palm Beach, Fla., and ADT, title sponsor of the event, jointly release the following statements in response to ADT not renewing its title sponsorship.
 
LPGA statement credited to LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens
The LPGA has enjoyed an excellent relationship with ADT as a title sponsor of our season-ending event since 2001, and we are tremendously grateful for ADT’s strong support and loyalty to the LPGA and our members throughout the years. While we are disappointed that ADT won’t title the event beyond 2008, we look forward to working with them to ensure the 2008 event is the most successful to date.  As it relates to the future title of this event, which features golf's most compelling format, we are having discussions with several groups for title sponsorship.
 
Statement credited to ADT Security Services
ADT Security Services has had a long and productive partnership with the LPGA as title sponsor of the ADT Championship. While ADT is committed to making this year’s ADT Championship the best ever, we have decided not to extend our sponsor relationship.  Over the years we have had the opportunity to work with LPGA in building a great event while hosting it in our local Palm Beach County community.
ADT maintains an excellent relationship with the LPGA and continues to be committed to our other partners including the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida, the Pepsi Center in Denver as well as several Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) properties, the Home Depot Center and LA Live in Southern California and the O2 Dome in London.
ADT’s strategy is to make significant investments in growth areas of our business that are more closely aligned with meeting the needs of our customers.
 

"I thought I would have been itchy to get back..."

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While Doug Ferguson analyzes the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour's various soft spots in light of the recent economic collapse, I think Tiger's answer in the Today Show interview to the question about getting away from the game is more disturbing.

Check out the video here.

He was asked if it has been good to get away and replied that he: "thought I would have been itchy to get back but after going through it I'm really not that itchy to get back," then cites the inability to rotate on his knee as the reason he doesn't have the itch.

"The penalty wasn’t something that was decided overnight. There was lots of feedback and lots of reasons."

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You have to give Carolyn Bivens big points for sitting down with Beth Ann Baldry since it was Baldry who broke the LPGA's learn-corporatespeak-or-else provision. And credit Baldry for asking tough questions.

GW: Looking back on the way everything developed, is there anything you would do differently? Is there anything the LPGA has learned from this?

CB: We learn from everything.

GW: Would you care to expand on that?

CB: The only thing I would expand on there is that this was not an announcement and it was not a policy. Unfortunately that is the way that it was portrayed.
In her defense, the media did blow that. Check out this L.A. Times front page story.  But isn't this kind of overblown reporting typically a consequence when word gets out about a boneheaded, insensitive policy?
GW: But it was a rule. There was a very strict penalty.

CB: I said it wasn’t a policy. It was a small part of a program. There was feedback from lots of different groups, just as Rae Evans told you. . . . On Sunday I was in Albany, and we have 10 new members of the LPGA. Half of those are international players. The list for Qualifying School was released this morning; we have almost 70 international players. That provides both challenges and opportunities for us. . . . What we were doing is looking down the pipeline and saying this is the perfect time of year to be looking at what’s coming to the LPGA over the next couple years and make sure we’ve got the resources and support to be able to handle that.

GW: So it wasn’t so much the current players on tour as it was looking ahead.

CB: Correct.
Are we now putting lipstick on a pig? Wait, don't accuse me of calling the Commissioner a pig!
GW: Looking at it now, do you realize or recognize that the penalty portion was a mistake?

CB: The penalty wasn’t something that was decided overnight. There was lots of feedback and lots of reasons.
Would that last sentence be allowed on the LPGA's English exam?
GW: Looking back on it now, do you wish you have discussed the penalty portion with more sponsors or...

CB: Sponsors never want to be part of these decisions.
Huh, she told Tommy Hicks the same day that "we were addressing sponsors' needs and requirements."
GW: Whom will you consult now, going forward? Will you include more people on this?
CB: What do they say . . . a camel is a horse built by a committee?

Good animal metaphor, much better than lipstick on a pig. I have a lot to learn.

What we need to be able to do is include enough for a cross-cultural group and to be able to control and announce. And not have something play in primetime way before it was ready. It was never intended as an announcement.
Got that Beth Ann. It's all your fault!

Speaking of fault, Ron Sirak says that the LPGA's triple-bogey could impact the Olympic golf push.
Fathers are angrier than their daughters at a perceived cultural insult, and the jury is still out on the mood of Korean companies who pour millions into the LPGA and have great national pride. The issue also may impact next year's vote on whether to add golf to the 2016 Olympics. It's the kind of insult the IOC remembers, such as when the Atlanta games proposed Augusta National as the golf venue.

"If you’ve been reading the blogs, you know that it has not just been heat. We’ve also been praised for being leaders."

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It's interesting to note that as soon as a major sponsor like State Farm was on the record questioning the LPGA's speak-English-you-pesky-Koreans-or-its-안녕, they rescinded their proposed penalties. Before we get to some reaction and the major question here, consider these two interviews from the last couple of days.

Michael Bush of Ad Age talked to Libba Galloway who held firm even after the State Farm comments. That was yesterday.

Steve Eubanks, in a Yahoo interview with Commissioner Bivens dated Thursday at 12:14 p.m., gets some interesting responses considering Fridays rescintion.

Bivens: Well, I’ll start by saying that, if you’ve been reading the blogs, you know that it has not just been heat. We’ve also been praised for being leaders.
See all of you who supported the commissioner in previous posts here, you provided someone comfort.

Eubanks asked about why only Koreans were targeted:
We currently don’t have any Spanish-speaking players who don’t speak English. We don’t have any Swedish players who don’t speak English, and we didn’t have any Japanese players in the Portland event, which is where we talked.
A couple of times a year, when I meet with the Korean players, they ask that I meet with the parents and guardians or their agents. That’s a group that has a unique culture and unique needs, just as the Spanish speakers or others that we don’t happen to have right now.
And here's where you have to question why she gets paid the big bucks:
Question: Were you surprised by the negative reaction this has gotten?
Bivens: Sure, when the headline is that we’re mandating English only and we’re going to suspend players, people are going to react to that. That’s not the program. Ninety-five percent of the program is about education and focus; 5 percent deals with the penalty, and we don’t expect to ever have to apply it. We’re providing all of the resources. Based on the headline and misinformation, we shouldn’t have been surprised.

This was not an announcement. This was a work in progress, and it came third-hand from a private meeting.
And wouldn't you just expect that something so clearly controversial would get out?

In an ESPN.com piece, Ron Sirak says the LPGA should have seen this coming.
This entire mess, which is embarrassing for the LPGA at best and potentially damaging to its efforts to do business in Asia at worst, could have been avoided if that "valuable feedback" had been sought before the rule was unilaterally imposed at a meeting with the Korean players in Portland, Ore., in late August. The decision to rescind the penalty was the right one, but is it a large enough eraser to eliminate the memory of the original insult?
These are huge points I don't think has been mentioned anywhere else:
The tour's single biggest revenue stream is Korean TV money. What is to be gained by offending that community?
The ultimate silliness about this entire situation is the small number of players it really affected. A well-placed source within the LPGA hierarchy said there were "perhaps a dozen" Korean players on tour who did not possess the English skills the LPGA desired. A caddie who works for a Korean player placed the number at "about five to seven."
This all seems to go back to the same point: who at the LPGA Tour is thinking about the big picture and understanding how the world might react to new policies? Clearly not Bivens or anyone she has brought in. Consider what John Hawkins wrote before Friday's news:
Blog Nation has been serving up a ton of related opinions, many of which castigate commissioner Carolyn Bivens for her sloppy handling of the matter, as if anything this administration does is executed in tidy fashion or is universally well received.

You know what I like about Bivens? Neither do I. A vast majority of the story­lines coming out of women's golf in recent years have come with a built-in negative hook, and not because the media is guilty of piling on. The language-barrier issue is a classic head-vs.-heart argument: what's good for business as opposed to what's morally right. There are a bunch of reasons not to like the LPGA's demand that its players speak English and just one obvious reason to validate the cause—so a bunch of South Korean girls can chat in the pro-am with the guy who owns the local supermarket chain.
How does she keep her job?


Sadly, for the LPGA Tour, she's a blogger's dream.That should tell the LPGA board everything it needs to know.

LPGA Backs Down: "관심사를 들어서 후에, 우리는 각 투어 선수를 위한 사업 기회 지원하고 강화하는의 우리의 공동 목적을 달성하는 다른 방법이 다는 것을 믿는다."

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According to the AP story, the death of the penalty provisions for not passing an English exam came two hours before a press conference and a day after a California lawmaker started raising serious questions.

Here's the statement from the Commish:

Statement credited to LPGA Commissioner Carolyn F. Bivens regarding the LPGA's policy on effective communication in English

The LPGA has received valuable feedback from a variety of constituents regarding the recently announced penalties attached to our effective communications policy. We have decided to rescind those penalty provisions.
After hearing the concerns, we believe there are other ways to achieve our shared objective of supporting and enhancing the business opportunities for every Tour player. In that spirit, we will continue communicating with our diverse Tour players to develop a better alternative. The LPGA will announce a revised approach, absent playing penalties, by the end of 2008.
During that time we will continue to provide support under the three-year-old Kolon-LPGA Cross Cultural Program. This popular program provides all LPGA members with the best cross-cultural training in the form of tutors, translators, Rosetta Stone®, the official language-learning system of the LPGA, as well as assistance from LPGA staff and consultants.

And for our Korean-speaking readers...

계산서는 LPGA 감독관에게 Carolyn F. 신용했다. 영어로 효과적인 커뮤니케이션에 LPGA의 정책에 대하여 Bivens는

 우리의 효과적인 커뮤니케이션 정책에 붙어 있던 최근에 알려진 형벌에 대하여 다양한 성분에서 LPGA 귀중한 의견을 받았다. 우리는 그 형벌 지급을 폐지하는 것을 결정했다.

관심사를 들어서 후에, 우리는 각 투어 선수를 위한 사업 기회 지원하고 강화하는의 우리의 공동 목적을 달성하는 다른 방법이 다는 것을 믿는다. 저 정신에서는, 우리는 우리의 다양한 투어 선수에 더 나은 대안을 개발하기 위하여 교통 계속되. LPGA는 2008년 말까지 수정한 접근, 결석한 노는 형벌을, 알릴 것이다.

그동안 우리는 Kolon-LPGA 3 년 오래된 교차하는 문화적인 프로그램의 밑에 지원을 제공하는 것을 계속할 것이다. 이 보급 프로그램은 LPGA 직원과 고문에게서 원조 뿐만 아니라 가정교사, 통역, Rosetta Stone® 의 LPGA의 공식적인 언어 배우는 체계의 모양으로 제일 cross-cultural 훈련을 모든 LPGA 일원에게, 제공한다.

"LPGA 투어 일원은 세계적인 기업의 고위급 행정관과 한 쌍이 되었다. 어느 쪽도 아니에는 그들의 첫번째 언어로 영어가 없었다. 그들은 동일한 국가에서 이지 않았다."

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The great branding never stops when it comes to the LPGA Tour's desire to penalize Korean players who can't tell their pro-am partners the difference between a Pro V1x and Platinum One, with Lorena Ochoa calling the new policy "a little drastic.”

Evan Rothman at Golfweek.com offers an excellent day-by-day primer on the key phrases Korean players will want to learn. Here's his Wednesday pro-am round list:

Wednesday: Pro-am round(to male pro-am partners)

“You’re in the [insert partner’s profession here] business? How fascinating.”“Nice drive. . . . Does your husband play golf?”

"Hit it, Alice.”

"You got all of that one!”

“A swing tip? You’re standing too close to the ball . . . after your shot.”

“Yes, Lorena really is as nice as everyone says. . . . No, I haven’t met Tiger Woods.”

“Another tip? Take two weeks off, then quit.”

“I don’t understand why Michelle Wie isn’t playing out here, either. I guess you’d have to ask her.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get it back on the next hole.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a tremendous slouch.”

(at round’s end)            
“Hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort?”

“Sorry, I don’t give out my phone number.”
And finally, because I always feel the need to give back, I offer this Korean translation for the SAT like-example provided by the Commissioner for learning English. To refresh your memory, here's the brilliance in English and Korean:
An LPGA Tour member was paired with a senior level executive of a global corporation. Neither had English as their first language. They were not from the same country. However, English was their common language, their common bond. They were able to effectively communicate in English throughout the entire 18-hole round, and to this day they are in discussions for a sponsorship opportunity. This would not have been possible if they could not effectively communicate in English. The player was equipped to harness this potential earnings opportunity. This is what the LPGA wants for its members. To be as prepared as possible to succeed both on and off the course.

LPGA 투어 일원은 세계적인 기업의 고위급 행정관과 한 쌍이 되었다. 어느 쪽도 아니에는 그들의 첫번째 언어로 영어가 없었다. 그들은 동일한 국가에서 이지 않았다. 그러나, 영어는 그들의 공통 언어, 그들의 일반적인 유대이었다. 그들은 효과적으로 둥근 전체 18 구멍을 통하여 영어로 교통할 수 있고, 후원 기회를 위한 면담에 현재까지 있다. 이것은 그들이 영어로 효과적으로 교통할 수 없던 경우에 가능하지 않ㄹ을. 선수는 이 잠재적인 수입 기회를 마구를 채우기 위하여 갖춰졌다. 이것은 LPGA가 그것의 일원을 위해 원하는 무슨이다. 둘 다 이따금 성공하게 가능한 한 준비되는 이기 위하여 과정.

See how easy it is to deal with the two languages.

Brand Lady Memo: "We do not view this as punitive but rather as underscoring the importance of a core value on which the LPGA was founded: engaging and entertaining our customers and fans."

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Thanks to the reader who passed this along, and do make sure you hit the link for the "background" on the policy.

To:         LPGA Constituents
From:    LPGA Commissioner Carolyn F. Bivens
Date:     Sept. 2, 2008
Subj:     LPGA overview regarding the effective communication in English policy

A great deal has been written this past week about the LPGA’s initiative to help members attain minimal English language skills. For those of you who want more details and background, please go to http://www.lpga.com/content_1.aspx?pid=17137&mid=4 where you will find an extensive overview. Please feel free to respond and offer comments.

Let's start with a key point of clarity: we are not suggesting, nor will we implement, an “English only” policy. The LPGA does not, nor will we ever, require English fluency, or even proficiency, from our international players.

As a U.S.-based tour, more than 65% of our events are held in our home country. For those events, we need our members to attain a level of communication in English so they can:

A.     deliver an enjoyable experience in the pro-am events at tournaments,
         which are the lifeblood of the LPGA business model;
B.     conduct their post-round interviews in English for the media; and

Sounds like English-only to me!

C.     deliver a short acceptance speech after winning an event.

None of this is new. The LPGA has had a program for more than three years whereby we dedicate substantial resources for the transition and education of our international members. This program includes an on-line learning program, tutors and translators with the expressed goal being a functional ability to communicate in English within two years after an international member has joined the LPGA.

The aspect which is new and received the vast majority of coverage last week is the penalty, which would be assessed after two years if a player didn’t achieve the minimal ability to communicate in English. We do not view this as punitive but rather as underscoring the importance of a core value on which the LPGA was founded: engaging and entertaining our customers and fans.
And here I thought it was to allow women to display their incredible golfing skills! What was I thinking!
Without this most basic ability to entertain our customers, we will not maintain the current levels of events much less grow. Nor will our international members have the skills necessary to maximize their individual earnings potential by being able to communicate with prospective sponsors.

I’d like to offer a brief word about our events outside the United States.
Here's the part where we let it be known that Paula Creamer had better learn to say vachchuneta!
As part of our Board-approved strategic plan, we are producing cultural briefings for each tournament beginning this fall. Among items shared with members will be key phrases for communicating in the native language of the country in which the event is held. Additionally, we have a number of members already using our on-line language services to learn other languages.

I believe, as do the majority of our domestic and international members, the program we have implemented will benefit the LPGA and every Tour member individually.

Please feel free to send us your thoughts and comments.

 Best regards,

Carolyn F. Bivens

"Such nonsense represents nothing short of blatant and specific racism."

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On the LPGA's planned English-speaking requirement, John Huggan becomes the first to drop the "r" word in a major publication, talks to a player who offers a fresh perspective and drops the mini-bombshell that Commissioner Bivens has instituted a new rule requiring media background checks. Anyway, the "r" word part:

Now, quite apart from the obviously tricky legal aspects of such a distasteful and questionable move – and the equally self-evident irony in having those who, like, routinely mangle the, like, English-language on a, like, daily basis, claiming the upper hand in any linguistic argument – such nonsense represents nothing short of blatant and specific racism. Note that, despite today's LPGA tour being more diverse than it has ever been, only the Koreans were summoned to answer for their perceived verbal shortcomings.
Just why one nation should be singled out is not difficult to discern. For the US-based LPGA, the by-now routine domination of the tour by foreign-born players – a group largely made up of Koreans – is something of a commercial problem. Twenty-four LPGA events have been played so far this year and in 18 of those a non-US national has finished first. Seven of those 18 victories – including the two most recent major championships – have been recorded by Korean women.
For Middle America, such a phenomenon is the golfing equivalent of sleeping pills. For it is a sad and insular fact of life that Wally Hamburger III and his wife, Betty-Sue, have little or no interest in watching an apparently homogenous group of "furrners" beating up on homegrown twinkies like Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis and Cristie Kerr.
He also talks to Catriona Matthew who offers this common sense attitude:

"To me, the whole thing is a bit odd in that I can't think of too many players – Korean or not – to whom this would apply. After two years on tour, 99 per cent of the players know enough English to get by. Which begs the question: Why is the LPGA bothering?

"In most cases I have found that the players can understand English but they are less comfortable speaking it in a public forum. That is understandable. It's easy to get something wrong in a second language. The bottom line is that the LPGA has more important issues it could be focusing on."