LPGA’s English policy draws PGA criticism

Source: MSNBC/AP

NORTON, Mass. - Imagine what could have happened to Angel Cabrera if he belonged to a tour that required its players to speak English.

A powerful Argentine who rose from an impoverished childhood, he won the U.S. Open last year at Oakmont by holding off Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. In the hours after the trophy presentation, Cabrera made his way through a maze of media interviews in Spanish with an interpreter at his side.

Under a new LPGA Tour policy effective next year, Cabrera might have been suspended. Or, he might not have played at all if an official on that tour deemed he was ineffective in English.

“You don’t have to speak English to play golf,” Cabrera said Thursday in Spanish, joining a chorus of male players perplexed by the LPGA Tour’s decision to be punish women golfers for not speaking English in pro-ams, trophy presentations and media interviews.

Read more: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26446681/

Here's what the USGA Museum says about the issue: "While many Scots firmly maintain that golf evolved from a family of stick-and-ball games widely practiced throughout the British Isles during the Middle Ages, considerable evidence suggests that the game derived from stick-and-ball games that were played in France, Germany and the Low Countries."

Part of that evidence is the etymology of the word "golf" itself. "Golf" derives from the Old Scots terms "golve" or "goff," which themselves evolved from the medieval Dutch term "kolf."

And when you consider the first Scot golf game was in the 15th century I doubt any modern english speaker could understand what they were saying.

And when you consider how Scots talk now, I doubt any modern english speaker can understand what they are saying. B-)

Not after several pints, any way!

how the LPGA could even think this was a good idea is beyond me.

I often wonder what the real reasoning is behind that sort of policy. It smacks of keeping American players in the top-paying positions instead of really opening up the LPGA to all of the world's great women golfers.