Ladies Golf takes the Cake

First published on Crew.org forum 28 August 2008

So long as the dreadful President Emeritus Juan Antonio Samaranch continues to tread it’s corridors, the Olympic movement can be expected to serve up such Leni Reisenthal-ish images as the jack-booted Chinese guards folding the Olympic flag.

But while, in my experience, there has always been a propensity for sporting officials to emulate the habits and behaviour of the late lamented Fuhrer, the latest move by the Ladies Professional Golf Association takes the cake.

While it purports to be an International body, with part of it’s circuit played in Mexico, Japan, and South Africa, the LPGA is essentially a US institution.

But that hardly justifies the recent xenophobic edict from the storm-troopers of the Ladies Committee - that all players must pass an English language test by 2009 and, meanwhile, newcomers need not apply until they can ‘’spikka da inglees’.

The reason given is that players need to effectively tout their sponsors’ products - say stuff like “I owe my hole in one to Pepto-bismol” or, perhaps, “I couldn’t play 18 holes without my Depends!”
Leaving aside the obvious thought that few Americans could pass an English Test anyway, it will be interesting to see the reaction from the European Ladies. As a temporary resident of bilingual Canada, methinks the LPGA is heading for strife and ridicule.

And how long, I wonder, before yachting’s Cat 1 demands, in the interest of effective communication, that “All crew members will be required to pass an English proficiency Test”?