Here is an excerpt from a New York Times article regarding the rationale behind why the LPGA has instituted its English requirement:

In fairness, comparisons between the L.P.G.A., an independent organization not affiliated with the PGA Tour, and other sports bodies are imprecise. The L.P.G.A., much like the PGA Tour, is a group of individual players from diverse backgrounds whose success as an organization depends on its ability to attract sponsorships from companies looking to use the tour for corporate entertainment and advertisement.

Rarely are N.B.A. players called upon to play one-on-one with a corporate executive whose decision to write a sponsorship check is predicated on whether one had a good time shooting free throws with Kobe Bryant.

In other words, the LPGA needs these international players not only for their ability to excel at golf but also for their ability to excel at drawing in the sponsorship dollars by actively mingling and schmoozing with corporate executives.

But if the LPGA’s claim is actually credible, all I’d like to ask them is this:  Even with the years of English training, have you ever tried to carry on a meaningful English-only conversation with a FOB???

Now, if you’re a FOB and you’re reading this, please don’t be offended.  I don’t mean to belittle you in any way.  I love FOBs.  Some of my best friends are FOBs.  Even my parents are FOBs.  But, let’s face it, your guys’ grasp of the English language and American social phenomena is somewhat limited.

Granted that the current international players on the Tour are of varying English proficiency, for the LPGA to demand within four months, without warning that these players acquire not only the English proficiency but also the American cultural and social proficiency to induce these stodgy, white, male corporate execs (generally speaking) to open up their checkbooks in the style of a hobnobbing session with Kobe Bryant is not only unreasonable, it’s darn near impossible. 

I’m sorry, but you’re setting these players up for failure by setting the bar so high that failure is nearly assured.  And perhaps, that is their intent, as golf, it seems, is probably the only remaining mainstream sport out there that still has yet to fully break from its bigoted and aristocratic past.  As an example, I remember the stories my father, who is a golfing fanatic, used to tell me about country clubs in the South that remain even to this day “Whites Only”.  And who can’t forget the fried chicken comment directed towards Tiger Woods by Fuzzy Zoeller in the 1997 Masters tournament? 

At a time like this, it’s hard not to be reminded of those comedy films we all watched growing up, where a cabal of cool, jock fraternities, in being so threatened by one particular nerdy/uncool/outcast fraternity, take it upon themselves to have the misfits revoked from the Greek system by instituting a new accrediting process that only they-–the cool ones--can pass. 

And when taking into consideration the fact that the LPGA has yet to even come up with a process or standards to even measure the English ability of these international players, the analogy and the hidden dynamics at play become that much clearer and ridiculous.