Double post, but worth mentioning in both places:

Carolyn Bivens is on the bandwagon for the Olympics crowd, right? And, of course, the Olympics has two official languages – English and French (dead language). For as much as Bivens claims that Eun-Hee Ji’s English-less acceptance speech in Rochester was what set into motion this plan, I am much more likely to believe that Bivens drew upon her experience with the Olympics to bring the policy forward at this time.

Anyway, was pointed to the Sirak interview with Bivens in Golfworld and found many of the gems I heard on Golf Central last night as I was catching up on the golf world.

First, I find it hilarious that Carolyn was surprised about the backlash to this issue. From the piece:

Bivens was both surprised and angered by the reaction to the proficiency policy. “I find it troubling that media that does not know the whole story would jump on a racist bandwagon,” Bivens told Golf World. “If these players don’t take this step [and learn English], their ability to earn a living is reduced. They will be cut out of corporate and endorsement opportunities. I can’t imagine that someone who has thought this through does not realize that in opposing this measure they are penalizing the very people they are trying to help.”

At times, I really am convinced that Bivens has good ideas, but just fails so much in executing and communicating them that it is stunning she got the job based – in part – on her marketing background.

The issue of an “official language” of the United States has been brewing for probably a decade, and most intensively in the past few years with politicians discussing immigration reform. For the LPGA Tour to inject itself into the debate by making English a de-facto official language and then be stunned when the Tour becomes a lightning rod for both sides of said issue leads me to believe that this was not thought through well.

Even critics of the policy understand the benefits of learning English. I said as much in my qualified first reaction to the policy. But, again, mandating English as a condition of employment seems to be taking it way too far. Considering that the future of the LPGA Tour is likely not in the United States, it also is extremely hypocritical and comes across as biting the hand (and foreign money) that is feeding the Tour’s bank accounts.

To me, this policy is beginning to come across as a back door excuse for lousy sponsorships on the American part of the Tour. Sponsors for US events are dropping like flies (Safeway, Ginn, Fields, Semgroup) and it appears that the Tour is hemorrhaging on that front. Perhaps instituting said policy is a way of saying to sponsors and fans that they feel they have identified a problem with the product and want to correct it. There’s no easy way of saying that the nationality of players winning and dominating is a problem, so they tried this as an explanation.

Moving onto the motivation for the policy:

Of the three areas the LPGA has identified as linguistic trouble spots — media interviews, victory speeches (where sponsors are praised) and the pro-am competitions — the pro-am is unique to professional golf and is perhaps the tour’s strongest arguing point. Ichiro does not have to interact with four fans one day of every week. The cost of entering a four-person team in an LPGA pro-am is around $24,000; if the pro can’t speak English it creates an awkward situation.

Sure, that’s possible. But pro-ams are not exactly fun for players that speak English well. I was fortunate enough to caddie for Christina Kim in one about four years back in Kutztown, PA; a now dead event. She was her usual effervescent self to the execs from Wrangler Jeans that we were with for the day. But that was not true for all of the players in all of the groups. Some appeared to be the total opposite of chummy with their playing partners. More often than not, the pro-am is a disappointment.

I would wager, though, that this will ultimately end in the Tour having said policy, but with fines instead of suspensions.

I blogged as neutrally as possible at Waggle Room about the story out of last week’s meeting of South Korean players at the LPGA Tour Safeway Classic in which Commissioner Carolyn Bivens revealed that the Tour would demand English proficiency for players having been on Tour for two years or more.

After taking some time to think about it – the hypocrisy of Bivens, the importance of English in this culture and the world, and the struggling sponsorship situation – this is a must for the LPGA Tour.

Does it wreak of hypocrisy? Oh yeah. Carolyn Bivens has been on record talking about how Asian players strengthen the Tour and has followed the money that comes with the advent of Asian dominance of the Tour. There’s a legitimate Asian swing with another potentially developing in the early part of the season because of struggling Hawaiian events. Bivens wants to follow the money from Asia and Asian fans, but also demands the players speak English.

But, English is the language of this Tour. At least for now, the Tour is US based. The language spoken here – predominantly – is English. Sponsors sign advertising and sponsorship agreements in that idioma (a lil Spanish joke). They pay thousands and millions to play with Tour pros. Any players paired with these groups that speak poor English have a tough time making the experience enjoyable, or at least not totally awkward. With how much sponsorship is struggling here in the US for the LPGA Tour (and golf in general), it would seem that any measure would help.

Invariably, this language requirement will help the Tour here in the States, especially with fans and media that find connecting with Asian players next to impossible at times. Certainly, this is not true across the board. One need not look further than the great LPGA-niched blogs that I reference to know that hardcore, good LPGA fans don’t care about any language except that of golf. It is a unifying language to the truest of fans. But for those who don’t speak golf, they want English to understand the game’s up and coming stars.

Americans tend to root for people who are somewhat like us, or at least willing to immerse themselves into our culture. So many people think of Annika Sorenstam as an American though she clearly isn’t. It’s the lack of a language barrier and years of excellence that have made our fans so grateful and respectful of her.

Se Ri Pak is a great example of the evolution of feelings of fans for Asian players. When Pak (really Park) arrived ten years ago and took the game by storm, she didn’t speak a lick of English. She has worked hard, though, to learn and become proficient in the language. It has made her more endearing to fans who are more likely to think of her like Annika than Na Yeon Choi. Still, there is a gap there because she still gaps in the language.

Do I think it’s fair how players will be targeted? No. Does it seem like a suspension of membership for not knowing English is awfully harsh? Yes. But, it does seem important that the Tour make strides to get players proficient in the global language of business. Otherwise, the Tour cannot cash in on opportunities around the world – something it desperately needs to do given the current sponsorship situation.

It is simply my hope, though, that this does not become an arbitrary witch hunt as part of an attempt to Americanize the Asian stars. They offer the same Five Elements of Celebrity as a player of any other nationality. To ask them to shed any more of their natural diversity and cultural appeal other than their language would be too much to ask. Hopefully this does not set such a precedent.

The Hound Dog has a really great summary of the final stretch, including the playoff, at the Safeway Classic. Eventually, Cristie Kerr won for the first time this year and the 11th time in her career.

This was a 54 hole event, which they’re trying to phase out of most of the LPGA Tour schedule. For whatever reason, people think it’s not as good of an event if you only play 3 rounds. But, what I love about them is the very aspect that caused the playoff this week.

54 holes is not a lot of time to win a tournament. You have to play streaky and hot to win. You can’t take a round off and still win – unless you go like 61-61-70.

The stretch of having a half dozen golfers in the mix on Sunday was great, and they were all good names, too. Why not keep that every once in a while? It’s a fun change of pace!

The LPGA Tour has announced new qualifications for status on Tour for 2009. You can take a look at the specs on the LPGA site. Some of the big things to note are:

• There is no longer a money list exemption for the Top 90, now it’s top 80.
• Now 10 cards are available for players on the Futures Tour (as predicted earlier this season, particularly as the LPGA Tour gears to become a more global tour and turn the Futures Tour into an American based B-league).
• Also, there is a battlefield promotion from the Futures Tour.
• Non-member winners can become exempt in better priority position – Ji Yai Shin, anyone?

The Constructivist over at Mostly Harmless has some analysis of his own that’s a good read as well if you’re curious about the broader implications. On the whole, though, I like these changes and think they’re intended to head in the right direction for Tour membership.

I have a post over at Waggle Room (cross-promotion!) on the realities facing the PGA Tour and its strong linkages to the financial sector in the context of an East Valley Tribune piece on FBR.

If you thought the LPGA Tour getting in bed with Bobby Ginn was dangerous, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Yani Tseng is having a tremendous rookie season on the LPGA Tour. She has won a major championship – the LPGA Championship – and has made almost $1.5 million this season. She has five medal stand finishes other than her victory at Bulle Rock. All in all, it appears that Tseng is heading for great things on the LPGA Tour.

Sunday, though, was an indication that Tseng still has a ways to go before achieving that status on Tour. She entered the final round of CN Canadian Women’s Open with a four stroke lead. Normally, a lead of that size is pretty safe in pro golf. But, for whatever reason, it began to get away from Tseng on hole 3 with a bogey. After getting that stroke back on the fourth, Tseng went into a tailspin until a calming par at the 13^th. In total, she dropped seven shots and mixed in two birdies. Her scorecard read 77 and she finished solo third place, behind winner Katherine Hull.

Tseng is such a consistent player that there have to be reasons for the collapse.

First, Tseng was paired with Se Ri Pak in the final round. Despite having won a major championship this year, there is almost no way that having Pak in the pairing did not make Tseng somewhat nervous. Perhaps that had something to do with the final round performance.

Second, this kind of situation has already cost Tseng wins this season. Tseng entered the final round of the State Farm Classic in Illinois with a two shot lead. On a course that yields low score, Tseng was unable to continue making birdies in the final round. She posted even par – better certainly that this Sunday – but it was only good enough to get her into a playoff with Ji Young Oh. Oh had the momentum in the playoff and put Tseng away with birdie on the first playoff hole.

Tseng said after her Saturday round in Ottawa that the experience in Illinois would help on Sunday. “I feel more pressure going into Sunday, but this is my second time (with the 54-hole lead), so I’m not quite as nervous,” Tseng said. “There’s not quite as much pressure as last time. This time I feel very good, I feel I’m ready to win.”

The biggest reason, though, may be that it is very difficult to win a golf tournament going into the final round as an overwhelming favorite. In years of observation of golf, it seems that going wire-to-wire is many times over more difficult than picking off the leader from behind.

Tseng captured her win of this rookie campaign from behind. Almost all observers expected that Annika and Lorena would compete for title of LPGA Champion. Tseng felt little pressure and low expectations entering that final round. She playing stunningly well with Ochoa alongside and posted a final round of 68 – good enough for a playoff she would eventually win against Maria Hjorth.

This loss on Sunday is another step in the process of learning how to win. Lorena Ochoa went through the same maturation process on her way to the top of the world rankings. Ochoa, like all golfers, still struggles with being the frontrunner. Having owned the field for two days in Canada, Lorena could not muster a round under par on the weekend. An event that almost certainly appeared to be hers through 36 holes turned out to be a disappointment. These things do happen.

Still, the approach that Tseng is taking is the correct one. She is learning what it means to be a champion. The best lessons are the toughest and costliest to learn. Much better, though, that they are to happen in her rookie campaign. At the ripe old age of 19, Tseng will have years to take the lessons of this season and transform herself into one of the all time greats in the game. Hopefully, she will learn these lessons well.

Michelle Wie fired a 2nd round of 70 (-2) to finish 36 holes at +1 in the CN Canadian Women’s Open on the LPGA Tour. That puts her in a tie for 35th place, but 11 shots out of the lead of Lorena Ochoa. To get into 2nd, she would have to make up 9 shots over the weekend from where she is now. Can she do it?

What makes a major? It is something we talk about every May now with the Players Championship. Tim Finchem wants to convince you that enough time has passed that the Players should be a legitimate fifth major – not just in moniker. Most of us laugh because that’s ridiculous that the presenter of an event could declare the event a major and expect everyone to accept that. It is also equally ridiculous that a Tour could declare any event as being a major championship.

Grant Boone filed his Grant Me This column pre-PGA, but I had missed it. Read it yesterday and loved it, particularly the part where he talks about how majors got to be that way on the PGA Tour side. Made me ask some fundamental questions.

First, (but later in the piece) a bit of a history lesson on defining the Grand Slam:

Bobby Jones valued the U.S. and British Opens and Amateurs — the oldest events in golf, even then — above all other championships and set out to win all four in the same year, which he did in 1930. That pursuit and achievement were awe-inspiring enough, but the legend grew because O.B. Keeler so eloquently dubbed Jones’ feat as “having stormed the impregnable quadrilateral.” Of course, most people didn’t have Keeler’s I.Q. so his moniker of those same initials didn’t really stick. But the idea of winning four big events in the same year did.

Which is why Arnold Palmer — whose first “Major” victory was at Jones’ Masters in 1958 — is reputed to have said sometime around 1960 that the modern I.Q. should be the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA Championship. By then, time had allowed those events to calcify in their significance. In 1960, the British Open turned 100. The U.S. Open began in 1895; the PGA in 1916; and even the baby of the group, the Masters, had been around a quarter century. (Plus Palmer must have given special dispensation to the Augusta “tunamint” seeing as how its co-creator Jones, via Keeler, immortalized the notion of trying to win four big events in a single season.)

At that point, it was far more reasonable, not to mention easier to say and spell, for a baseball-crazed nation to latch on to “Grand Slam,” a term from Wagner’s world, the Major Leagues. But those guys got it right. They borrowed the term because it fit the number of major events — four runs score on a grand slam, four major tournaments — as opposed to adopting the idea, then scrounging up four tournaments you think will fit the bill.

It’s a good refresher, just like an Arnold Palmer – half iced tea and half lemonade. Boone uses this as ammunition against both the LPGA and Champions Tours in how they define their majors.

The LPGA has called no less than seven tournaments “Majors” through the years. Its current lineup consists of the Kraft Nabisco Championship (nee Dinah Shore), McDonald’s LPGA Championship, U.S. Women’s Open, and the aforementioned Women’s British, an event previously sponsored by Weetabix. Nothing connotes significance quite like breakfast cereal. (”It’s a major! No, it’s breakfast! You’re both wrong. It’s a major championship and a breakfast cereal!”) In 2001, with the old du Maurier in Canada increasingly wobbly in its sponsorship and finances, the LPGA yanked its “Major” label and slapped it on the Women’s British. Makes perfect sense. After all, the men’s Open Championship is a major. Except that one predates the American Civil War. The women’s version barely predates the Carter Administration. It’s not the specific tournament the LPGA chose that’s the problem; it’s the fact that they would think simply calling a championship a major actually makes it one.

The Champions Tour is worse. For one thing, they have five “Majors.” That’s more than one-sixth of the tournaments on the schedule. Some need to be stripped of that ranking, beginning with the three which have presenting or title sponsors. Generally speaking, the shorter the name of the tournament, the more prestigious it is. For example, the Masters. That’s it. Not the Masters presented by Krispy Kreme. The two most important events for players age 50 and over are the Senior PGA Championship (founded in 1937) and the U.S. Senior Open (1980). You can call them majors. I’m giving the others an honorable discharge.

And he also issues a beautifully written slam at the PGA Tour and the Players.

I’m not sure which is Dumb and which is Dumber: that a tour would suddenly prop up a particular tournament as a major championship or that they’d expect us as golf fans to treat those events with any semblance of gravitas.

In short, Boone seems to be of the mind – and I agree – that majors are defined by the players (not PLAYERS) and fans and writers. The golf public determines what is most prestigious in the game, not the organizations and corporations that present these tournaments. Perhaps in another twenty years, the next great golf phenom will redefine the modern Grand Slam. Maybe the Players will be in it. Maybe it won’t.

If you’re in charge of defining a major championship, then, what defines it for you? And, if you had to start over today, what four (and only four) events would be the majors?

We got it from the AP:

The organizers of the LPGA’s Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika Sorenstam announced Friday they couldn’t obtain the sponsorships needed to keep the tournament through 2010.

Ginn Companies chairman Bobby Ginn blamed a faltering economy and less corporate funds for the demise of the tournament at RiverTowne Country Club.

“The golf tournament business is primarily fueled by economic support,” Ginn said in a statement. “We did everything in our power to generate the sponsorship necessary to continue with the Ginn Tribute, but given the current market and corresponding cuts in corporate spending, it was an uphill battle.”

Also got a typo:

While South Carolina is a golf destination … the LGPA Tour has struggled to find a footing.

So that whole denial thing in The State from Ginn? Biding time.

Now, does the Ginn Open become Annika’s event?