So, you never thought speaking English could be this important, huh?! Check out the introduction of the article below. If you want to read it all, the link is right below it.
Cheers!!
Speak English or be suspended, LPGA says
By Larry Dorman The New York Times Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Concerned about its appeal to sponsors, the U.S. women’s professional golf tour, which in recent years has been dominated by players born outside the United States, has warned its members that they must become conversant in English by 2009 or face suspension.
“We live in a sports-entertainment environment,” said Libba Galloway, the deputy commissioner of the tour, the Ladies Professional Golf Association. “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, and 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.”
The LPGA and the other professional golf tours, unlike professional team sports, are dependent on their relationships with corporate sponsors for their financial survival.
Although Galloway insisted that “the vast majority” of the 120 international players on the LPGA circuit already spoke enough English to get by, she declined to say how many did not. There are 26 countries represented on the LPGA Tour. South Korea, with 45 golfers, has the largest non-U.S. contingent. The LPGA says that 358 American players are now eligible for the Tour.
The LPGA’s new language policy – believed to be the only such policy in a major sport – was first reported by Golfweek magazine on its Web site Monday. According to Golfweek, the LPGA held a meeting with the tour’s South Korean players last week before the Safeway Classic, at which the LPGA commissioner, Carolyn Bivens, outlined the policy. Golfweek reported that many in attendance misunderstood the penalty, believing they would lose their tour cards if they did not meet the language requirement.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/27/sports/GOLF.php
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