Lpga Scraps English Exams For Players
The LPGA Tour has decided not to pursue plans that would have seen players having to speak English by 2009 else face suspension.
Regulations aimed at improving the Tour’s commercial appeal, whereby all golfers who have been on the tour for two years must pass an oral exam or face a threat to their membership, have been axed.
The plans sparked fury among LPGA members, which has 45 South Koreans among its 121 non-American players.
LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens said a punishment-free program will now be used.
The LPGA agreed that there would be better ways to achieve the goals it sought without inflicting punishment.
The LPGA says it will now announce a revised approach, which does not impose playing penalties, by the end of 2008.
It will continue a program started in 2005 to provide all LPGA players with language training, tutors, translators and learning schemes.
