Posted on 08/27/2008 7:52:58 PM PDT by hole_n_one
PORTLAND, Oregon (AFP) — The LPGA Tour is going to force its burgeoning South Korean contingent of players to learn to speak English or risk losing their playing privileges.
Starting next year, the Tour announced that players who have been on the tour for two years must pass a oral English test or face suspension.
(Excerpt) Read more at afp.google.com ...
I posted this in News/Activism because I think the topic transcends sports and deals more directly with the immigration issue.
Next thing you know.....they’ll demand that LPGA members like boys......
;-)
Make that News/Current Events
I hereby suspend the writer.
Don’t kid yourself. This is just the old girls club trying to find a way to get rid of a few upstarts who just happen to be better golfers.
You would think that our own government would follow suit and make English the official language.
Pray gorf! I a glee!
Next thing you know NASCAR will demand that their drivers speak English!
This has nothing to due with the immigration issue, those girls are here legally, so don’t even try to imply that this is so how connected, because it isn’t one bit.
And I think this is a horrible idea to mandate it like this, Carol Bivens is a complete moron who is doing nothing but damaging the LPGA.
These girls are learning english, as well as helping to grow the sport outside of the US into various other countries, my major issue though is the LPGA put their focus almost soley on the Korean players, and that is a complete shame that she’s doing this to some great people.
Who wants to play in a Pro-Am with a Korean who, never mind choppy English, doesn't speak any English?
The test (and the suspension) will both be administered by B.J. Clinton.
It’s business, as in $$$$$$$$$.
Hire caddies that can translate. Major League Baseball teams have translators when the players can’t understand english, and the players are still valuable to the team. Golf is a much more individual sport, so I think this is an overly strict rule. It doesn’t sell the sport of golf around the world very well.
Nah, sponsors will react by not signing a player for endorsements. Make no mistake, this is not business, this is trying to find a loophole to get rid of the better golfers that are threatening the old girls club.
Sigh...OK, here we go again...
The Korean players try very hard on their English. I saw this first hand. AND, the Koreans are some of the best spokespersons for the game and the tour. They are, to a player, very courteous, outgoing and cooperative with fans. To appreciate what these girls go through, follow them around a golf course for the week, and I mean the WHOLE WEEK!
Practice, Pro-Am, tournament, travel, mandated events, THEN ask them to learn one of the most difficult and confusing languages on EARTH? And I promise you, the Koreans are the hardest workers out there, day in and day out. Most of the American girls take Mondays off, but the Koreans, ALL of the Koreans, are out there on the course.
And, they are never far from an interpreter. Sounds like the LPGA is kissing up to some of their more jingoistic fans...
I don’t see the big deal. If the corporate sponsors need advertising, teach ‘em a couple of words, and have ‘em smile. American actors and celebs do foreign non-English commercial ALL the time. I still crack up at Arhnold’s Japanese commercial I saw some years ago.
Very interesting take.
I haven’t been around the LPGA long enough to realize there was such a thing as an old girls club.
You can’t be serious? To compound the issue, I wouldn’t be surprised if the young Korean women were straight, another way to get on the bad side of the old girls club.
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