The LPGA Language Rule Might Not Be Legal

Just one day after the LPGA announced that you better be able to yell "sit" to your ball in English, some are wondering if this is even legal.

Starting in 2009, golfers on the LPGA will be forced to pass an English proficiency test and if you fail, you will be suspended from the golf tournament and not let back on tour until you improve your speaking skills. This all is predicated around the fact that pro-am partners and the media couldn't really communicate with some of the foreign golfers taking over the LPGA. But, forcing people to learn a language? That sure sounds like something that might break a law.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

"Language and national origin are inextricable," says Steven D. Jacobs, an attorney that is currently working on an English-only case at a sheet-metal factory in Connecticut. "The LPGA is making English a precondition of access. That's a classic no-no. I don't see how this will stand up in court if a player challenges it."

The LPGA is making their plan a little more clear after their fishy way of announcing the plan yesterday. The first language test will be next fall when the season is coming to a close, so if you fail a test you might have the entire off-season to not only practicing putting, but pronouncing. This might help deter anyone from missing golf at all.

LPGA Deputy Commissioner and former Duke Law grad Libba Galloway tried to make clear as best she could the idea behind the rule.

"We are not discouraging players from speaking other languages. They can talk to their caddie in whatever language they choose. They can speak to other players on the driving range in whatever language they choose. If they're Brazilian and a reporter asks them a question in Portuguese, by all means, answer it in Portuguese. And we're not demanding that the players be perfectly fluent in English. What we're saying is that the ability to speak to your pro-am partners and to the media, and for the winner to give their victory speech in English, will be one of our tournament regulations."

Galloway goes on to explain that learning English is "vital" to the future of the LPGA. One of the biggest sticking points to this argument is that the pro-am partners, forking up five figures, want to be able to communicate with their playing partners and this will give them an outlet to do so. I just don't know how important this really is. I know that being social and yucking it up with your playing partner is great, but not everyone has this personality. Just because a Korean girl learns minimal English doesn't mean she's going to be downing beers and knocking back hot dogs with the boys. This is a different culture and learning a sentence here or there isn't going to change that.

If a foreign golfer does challenge this legally it will be hard for the LPGA to stand up against the obvious discrimination. You can make the argument that this will help the business side of things, but we're talking about an American golf tour. I'm pretty sure the phrase "land of the free" can translate into any language.