• GolfweekTV: How will the LPGA's rule affect the tour?
• LPGA to demand English proficiency
• Rothman: Speak English like a pro
• Futures Tour to increase English training
• Media reaction to LPGA mandate
By BETH ANN BALDRY
Senior WriterThe LPGA sparked a national conversation with its new English proficiency evaluation, and it didn’t take long for the news to travel East.
The LPGA’s policy, which stipulates that international players must pass an oral English evaluation after two years on tour or face suspension, is a hot topic this week in South Korea, where the SBS Charity Ladies Open is being played on Jeju Island.
Myung Hyun Han, vice president of the KLPGA, acknowledged in an e-mail response to
Golfweek’
s inquiries that English-proficiency “is an inevitable measurement” for South Koreans on the LPGA, but added that his office is “a bit confused at applying a strong measurement (of) suspension.” The KLPGA plans to meet with the LPGA’s board, he said.
Players and media at the SBS Charity Ladies Open shared their concern about the LPGA's move.
“(KLPGA players) agree that (for) players who want to play on LPGA tour, English is a necessary thing,” said Bret Choi, a reporter for the JNA Golf News Agency, who covers both tours. “But they also think language can’t be a means to restrict.”
Jin-Young Kim has reported on the Korean golf scene since 1992 for
The Seoul Economic Daily. She took a break from a round of golf on Jeju to weigh in on the LPGA’s controversial decision.
“It’s not fair,” Kim said. “We think it’s like discrimination. We know it’s very important to speak English in America and to be friendly with people. We all know. But it’s not the standard, the method to cut or pass a player on the LPGA.”
Hae-Won Kang takes it a step further, saying that first-generation Koreans on the LPGA (i.e. Se Ri Pak, Hee-Won Han, Mi Hyun Kim) learned English quicker because they had little help. Since the LPGA hired a full-time staffer who is fluent in Korean and can help with interviews, Kang thinks many players have become complacent.
Pak stood alone when she joined the tour more than 10 years ago. Now there are 45 South Korean players with LPGA status who can communicate with each other in their native tongue. Some South Korean players might be able to conduct a media interview in English but rely on the tour’s interpreter when available. Of the 45 South Korean players on tour, there are at least a dozen who would bring an interpreter into the interview room.
Kang, an event manager in South Korea who operates both KLPGA and KPGA events, understands the LPGA’s situation but doesn’t see an English test as an appropriate solution.
“It’s not giving the right impression,” Kang said. “America has this image of equality. This rule might ruin that.”
Many American players, however, don’t think the LPGA’s regulation tarnishes the nation’s melting-pot image. Angela Stanford, a Texan who serves on the tour’s Player Executive Committee, thinks the issue has “been blown way out of proportion.”
Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, past president of the tour’s Executive Committee, found out about the new rule when she got to her in-laws’ house earlier this week and read the newspaper. The LPGA sent out a short memo to the membership Tuesday morning, touching on the bare basics of the rule:
“Under this policy, all members must demonstrate that they can communicate in English in the following areas of our business: interaction with amateurs during tournament pro-ams, media interviews, and winner acceptance speeches, including thanking sponsors, fans, and volunteers. . . . By the end of 2008, the LPGA will develop detailed criteria for this new policy and will distribute it to the Tour members.”
Goetze-Ackerman said she didn’t know why the tour chose not to inform its entire membership of the new policy last week in Portland, Ore., at Tuesday’s general player meeting. But overall, she thought it was a “great idea.”
“We’re pretty strong on our stance on everything, like drug testing,” she said. “So it doesn’t surprise me that we are taking an aggressive stance on it. And we’re giving (international players) ample time.”
LPGA Hall of Famer Carol Mann won 38 titles while on the LPGA, making her last competitive appearance in 1981. She held nothing back when expressing her approval of the tour’s policy.
“I have friends who will turn the TV off or find other things to watch if Koreans are in the lead,” Mann said. “A couple of weeks ago, there were seven or eight of them. . . . Carolyn Bivens has to protect the business of the future and the television package she’s trying to design. So I think it is terrific.”
Asian organizations around the country are petitioning the LPGA to rescind its language policy.
Cao K. O, executive director of the Asian American Federation, sent a letter to Bivens Aug. 28 expressing his organization’s objections. Bivens reportedly is on vacation in California and has yet to comment on the policy she introduced to South Korean players Aug. 20 at the Safeway Classic.
“Foreign-born players are needed here, and they help enhance the United States’ global image and competitiveness,” O wrote in the letter. “We should make them feel welcome, encouraged, and appreciated. It does not make economic sense to create an atmosphere in which foreign-born players feel unfairly treated, because English proficiency is not performance relevant with respect to playing golf.”
Rep. Mary Hayashi, a Korean-born member of the California Assembly, sent a statement critical of the LPGA’s action. Hayashi, a Democrat from Hayward, serves the 18th Assembly District, which is near the LPGA’s tournament in Danville. The Bay Area’s Korean-American Association alerted her to the policy. As incoming chairperson for the California State Assembly Committee on Business and Profession, Hayashi plans to give the rule a serious evaluation.
“The reason I’m not going to outright consider legislation right now is I’m still waiting on a callback from the LPGA,” Hayashi said. “I’d like to see the written policy and have a conversation with them about why this is necessary. I’m willing to work with them. But as a state legislator, I’m very concerned about this policy being potentially discriminatory.”
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association also released a statement Wednesday that called the LPGA’s decision appalling. The organization urged LPGA sponsors to withdraw their support until the tour rescinds its position. It also raised concerns about LPGA staffers being authorized to identify the players who need to be evaluated, fearing that a “lack of standardized procedures may lead to discriminatory targeting. . . .”
“Whether federal employment-discrimination laws or state public-accommodation laws or some other type of civil-rights laws may apply to prohibit the LPGA’s rule is something that I’m sure is going to be debated and possibly litigated in the future,” said Tina Matsuoka, the NAPABA’s executive director.
“For us, it really does come down to the fact that we don’t see that English proficiency is something that is necessary to compete and excel at the game of golf.”
Legal experts contacted by Golfweek say the LPGA might be on shaky ground.
Leonard Decof, a former general counsel of the LPGA, questioned whether there is “some reasonable connection to playing the game and speaking English.”
“It’s obviously a collision between business and civil rights and discrimination,” said Decof, who heads a law firm in Providence, R.I. “The LPGA has been fighting discrimination for years. This is a form of discrimination. I’m sure the LPGA did this for business reasons.”
Peter Kupelian, an employment-law expert in Southfield, Mich., questions the LPGA’s approach.
“It’s difficult to argue with their goals and what they consider to be a need,” he said, adding: “The language requirement has red flags all over it.”
Richard Lapchick has studied diversity in sports for nearly 40 years. He thinks the tour has “unleashed a public-relations disaster” and predicts the LPGA will have to change its decision “pretty soon.”
Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, can’t think of a single instance when a policy that has garnered this type of negative reaction hasn’t been reversed. While the LPGA points to its English policy as fundamental to its business initiatives, Lapchick said sponsors can’t publicly embrace the rule.
“It’s a decision that’s going to be too offensive to too many people that a large corporation can’t associate itself with it,” Lapchick said.
“It’s as politically incorrect as it can get.”
• • •
Beth Ann Baldry is a
Golfweek senior writer. To reach her e-mail
bbaldry@golfweek.com. Adam Schupak and Steve Harmon contributed
Posted: 8/28/2008
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