ANENDRA SINGH
For once, I'm tongue-tied.
In golf-speak, the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) are way out of bounds in their proposed foreigner-bashing policy.
In fact, in taking a new-ball drop-out after their "must" English oral test plan for next year, it'll be interesting to see if the world's longest-running women's sport association finds the middle of the fairway again.
Founded in 1950, the American old girls' network has grown from its roots as a playing tour into a non-profit entity that boasts a strong focus on charity through its tournaments, grassroots junior and women's programmes and a foundation.
Of the 121 international players from 26 countries on tour this season, 45 are from South Korea - a country that has sent more players than any other to the LPGA Tour - and will feel the handicap most.
Is it discriminatory? Xenophobic? Racism? Dripping with ethnocentrism?
Struth, diggers. To not be all the above, the LPGA must insist its English-speaking members deliver victory speeches in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French, Afrikaans or Malay before receiving their spoils in the eight other countries in which it hosts events.
Can you imagine the chaos if three years ago Kim Mrung Lee (oops, Danny Lee, of Rotorua, that is - but, no offence to the Magpie skipper, his Korean name sounds exotic), of Inch'on, had stepped up to receive his trophy after erasing the name of Tiger Woods from one record book?
"Ah, sorry Dan, old son. Chuck here can't give you the US Amateur Championship Trophy just yet. Magic English words first, please. Come on now, can't keep the sponsors waiting."
In 2005, the then 14-year-old Springfield Golf Club member eclipsed Doug Holloway's Maraenui Golf Club record by two strokes. All the primitively monosyllabic Lee could say then was "hello" and "goodbye" as, in vain, I sought a translator. Do a few words constitute English and is that enough to pass an oral test?
I'd love to hear Daniel Vettori's acceptance speech in Hindustani in the Indian Twenty/20 league or in Sinhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka after a test match.
For that matter, a fair chunk of Richie McCaw and the All Blacks' practice time would be lost acquiring an acceptable command of French, Japanese (who are in line to host the World Cup) and Spanish.
How can I put this in a dialect that the LPGA can easily grasp?
The policy is at the very least "ha kino" (Maori, I'm told, for bad taste) and wide open to legal challenge in the Land of Opportunity.
By virtue of winning, shouldn't the onus be on the organisers to have multilingual officials on standby to translate for foreign champions?
It appears the LPGA, branding itself as a worldwide tour, is under pressure from the lofty pitch-wedge corporate wallahs wanting more grunt for their dollar in sustaining professionalism.
An element of Obama-phobia is also teed up in the face of the Korean prowess. Ignorance seems to stick out as the common denominator.
What if you are dumb (have a speech impediment and cannot utter a word)?
Such draconian rules will leave the world poorer for talent such as Sri Lanka's self-taught mystery spinner, Ajantha Mendis, and NBA star Yao Ming.
For a country whose female golfers have fought the old boys' network for yonks, the latest slice is surely a self-destructive iron shot.
I wonder what the late Babe Didriksen, one of America's most revered sportswoman of the past century and professional golf champion, would make of it? She was, after all, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants.
* Have an opinion? Email sport@hbtoday.co.nz, fax 06 8730811 or write to Box 180, Hastings.
OPINION - LPGA has shot itself in the foot with test
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