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Actually the new Commissioner will only take the job on a interim basis. Evans, a retired Navy Rear Admiral, has already made it clear she isn’t interested in the job long term. A search committee has been formed to find a new successor.
If you want a thorough run down on Evans life, read Ryan’s post at Waggleroom.
So the Brand Lady is out. I repeat what I said last week, it’s about time. The LPGA schedule isn’t just in taters, but a long list of tournament sponsors were seriously unhappy with the way they were being treated. Miss Bivens may not have liked it, but without tournament sponsors their wouldn’t be a tour and antagonizing them in foolish ways was beyond assinine. It was destructive to ladies professional golf in the United States.
Some bloggers, Stephanie Wei and Brent Kelley for two, think we’ll see the Bivens era in a more positive light after a few years have passed. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. The LPGA has been seriously damaged and it will take a few years at least to get its house back in order. The long term television contract that Bivens landed as nice as it looks, can’t change the fact that the Golf Channel will still often show LPGA tourneys on tape delay due to its PGA contractual obligations. Nor do I expect the Network to suddenly focus more attention on the LPGA. That’s unless Michelle Wie finally gets a grip on that talent she has and starts a run at #1 player in the world. I still think that can happen.
My own opinion is barring Michelle Wie taking off, the LPGA will still be a niche sport and a very weakened one because of Carolyn Bivens actions during her time as Commissioner.
Hound Dog, The Constructivist, and Jay Busbee are also blogging on today’s news.
Golf World magazine’s Ron Sirak says it could come as early as next week.
Carolyn Bivens’ tumultuous four-year run as LPGA commissioner will end early next week, multiple sources tell GolfDigest.com, the tipping point coming when the Board of Directors received a letter from some of the tour’s top players calling for her resignation. Official word is expected after this week’s U.S. Women’s Open at Saucon Valley Country Club.
“The letter was a death sentence,” one source within the LPGA told GolfDigest.com. “No confidence by the players is a dagger in her heart,” said a second source, this one involved in tournament ownership.
Bivens has 18 months left on the three-year contract extension she signed at the beginning of 2008. Her salary, according to LPGA tax filings, is $500,000 a year. According to a source in tournament management, a general agreement with Bivens on financial terms was reached late Wednesday.
The only remaining questions surround when Bivens leaves office and how her departure is framed. “She’s gone. It’s just a question of whether it’s a firing or a resignation,” said one veteran player, a Bivens supporter. “And she doesn’t deserve any of it.”
The LPGA, its Tournament Owners Association, the Board of Directors and the players all deferred comment on the matter until after the Women’s Open. Bivens did not respond to an email request for an interview nor to a message left on her cell phone.
Bivens has had a habit of becoming hard to find when some controversy blows up involving the LPGA Tour. For instance the English policy debacle of last year. The Commissioner was out of communication for a week. Which frankly always amazed me considering Bivens background prior to the LPGA.
Among the players who signed the letter were Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, Lorena Ochoa, Cristie Kerr, Se Ri Pak, Suzann Pettersen and Natalie Gulbis. Ms. Bivens does have some supporters, but I doubt the total is very big.
My opinion of Bivens firing or resignation- It’s about time. I’ve been banging the drum loudly(I gave Bivens her own tag for this blog. That tells you frequently she’s been a topic of my posts.) for three years about Commissioner Bivens wrongheaded decision making. She’s angered sponsors, fans, and the media and right now the LPGA may have only ten U.S. based golf events in 2010. What’s the big deal about that? The tour plays all over the world. That’s true, but the foreign events are limited fields. Most LPGA players are going to have somewhere else to play.
The Bivens years has been almost complete for the LPGA Tour. Whoever gets her job is going to have a great deal of work to do to straighten out the mess they inherit from ‘The Brand Lady’.
Eunjung Yi made some LPGA history today at the Corning Classic.
Eunjung Yi of South Korea has made three eagles in her first five holes on the third round of the LPGA Corning Classic.
Yi eagled the par-4 first hole, the par-5 second hole and the par-5 fifth hole. She’s just the fifth player in LPGA history to accomplish the feat and only the 17th to post consecutive eagles.
Yi started Saturday at 4 under and tied for 59th. Her spree left her at 10 under and just four shots behind leader Karine Icher of France, who had yet to tee off.
Some LPGA related comments
1- Going into today’s third round, France’s Karine Icher had a two-shot lead over Hee Won Han. Han, a six-time winner on tour, is trying to win her first tournament since 2006. She won Corning in 2006, but her more recent victory was the 2006 LPGA Thailand.
Han was one of the most consistent LPGA players from 2003-06 when she finished between 4th and 9th every year on the money list. The reasons for her three-year absence from the winner’s circle is directly attributable to her having a baby boy in June 2007. She played less than a dozen events that year, and while she had a solid 2008, Han fell off to 19th on the money list. Herworst finish not counting 2007 since 2002.
2- Talking about motherhood, expectant Mom Mi Hyun ‘Peanut’ Kim opened today’s third round in a tie for 14th. Peanut sometime in the late summer or early fall will join Han as the only other South Korean Mom on tour.
Actually other than Han and Peanut, the only South Korean golfers I know that are married are Birdie Kim and Gloria Park.
3- Seon Hwa Lee is also tied for third and would be an appropriate winner for the last ever Corning Classic. Why would she be appropriate? Lee has won four LPGA events, three of them were never played again after Stone Buddha’s victory.
4- Randall Mell* at Golf Channel writes about how sponsors will lose money this year and future projections weren’t very good either -
That’s partly because the LPGA was asking more in negotiations over a new contract. This marks the last year of a four-year deal with the tournament declining to pick up the option for next year. The tournament’s board was negotiating a new deal through 2013 when it pulled the plug.
The cost of running this year’s Corning Classic will be about $3.7 million, Benjamin said. The tournament projects under a new four-year deal, those costs will average out to about $4.45 million annually, though Benjamin said it’s possible the LPGA would have made concessions to lower those costs.
The negotiations, however, never got that deep.
“The LPGA’s asking price didn’t help, but that wasn’t the reason for this decision,” Benjamin said. “We just can’t generate the revenue to keep this tournament the way it is. The economy’s taken a huge toll.”
Randall says you can’t point a derisive finger at the LPGA over its latest lost tournament but I disagree. The time to squeeze a sponsor isn’t when the economy is poor and your organization is having problems with retention. I think a tournament with a lower purse, is better than no tournament at all. Especially in light of the fact the LPGA has almost a dozen US tournaments right now in the last year of their contract.
Caddy blogger Larry has the following-
The details of the loss of The Corning Classic, if true, are troubling. More than one source states that the beloved Commissioner called for a pecuniary squeeze play and was thrown out at the plate. From what I understand, the Corning folks offered to maintain heir current contribution but noted that lessor sponsors were unable to do so. The event could still be held but at a reduced purse. This was rebuffed by the LPGA which demanded bumping the purse to 2.6 million and also called for the addition of more, and or better, scoreboards.
The LPGA version is that they tried everything possible to save the tournament.
After the SBS fiasco, with both sides offering contradictory stories on its demise, who do we believe? Weren’t we told by the LPGA that SBS couldn’t match the offer from J Golf? If you remember the interview with the CEO of SBS, he said the offer was never made. Does anyone see a pattern here? By the way, it didn’t take long for the PGA to pick them up as a sponsor in a long term deal for their opening event. I guess SBS had plenty of cash to spare after all.
One noted LPGA Hall of Fame member lamented recently, that if the players don’t take back the Tour within the next two years, it’s over. She is not the only one sharing that sentiment as more info comes to light about this week’s event.
Since the Shoprite fiasco, I been warning about the path LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens** has been taken. We’ve seen at least four tournaments go belly up because of how Ms. Bivens treated them in one fashion or another. The Hall of Famer is write, Bivens has to or the LPGA is sunk. I said for the first time almost three years ago.
5- Anything I wrote about who may win Corning this weekend is liable to be far off. Scoring has been extremely low today. Taiwan’s Yani Tseng and Vicki Hurst are ten under par for their rounds today and haven’t reached the clubhouse yet.
*- I’ve met Randall at the two LPGA tournaments I was a credentialed blogger for. He used to be a sports writer for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.
**- Bivens does have some accomplishments as Commissioner, but the negatives are far too overwhelming to not say her time in the job has been a disaster for the tour.
Seoul Broadcasting System aka SBS will be replacing Mercedes. From AP-
The PGA Tour added its first new title sponsor since the economic meltdown and shored up its season opener in Kapalua by announcing a 10-year deal Thursday with Korea-based SBS International.
Seoul Broadcasting System also extended by seven years its exclusive agreement to show PGA Tour events in Korea.
The deals run through 2019.
The tour has had mixed economic news this year. It is losing title sponsors in Phoenix, Milwaukee and Florida, while agreeing to contract extensions for four other tournaments through 2014.
But this represents its first new sponsor since the economy’s downturn last fall. SBS is the only media company to be a title sponsor on the PGA Tour, which has relied largely on the automobile and financial industry in the last decade.
*****
SBS had been the title sponsor of an LPGA Tournament on Oahu, which ended this year. SBS president Sang Chun said its LPGA deal helped spur interest in golf in Korea, and he expects the same dynamic with its PGA Tour deal.
SBS ended its sponsorship of the LPGA season opener in wake of how they were treated by the tour when they decided to enter into a new Korean television deal.
The contract with J Golf, which has yet to be announced by the tour or the network, but details of which were obtained by Golf World, is a multiyear deal likely worth in excess of $4 million annually, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. That is up significantly from the $2.25 million SBS says it paid to broadcast 30 events in Korea this year. Asked if his company would continue to sponsor the SBS Open when coverage moves to J Golf next year, Sang Y. Chun, president and CEO of SBS International, said: “Absolutely not.”
Chun, who said he was “disappointed, upset really” at losing the contract, said his feelings were “not about the money [but] about the way we were treated.”
The PGA Tour is much more sponsor friendly than the Carolyn Bivens led LPGA Tour. Cases in point include past LPGA sponsors Shoprite, Wendy’s, ADT, and SBS. All of whom were not happy with the their treatment. Now the LPGA’s schedule is falling apart at the same time the world wide economy is in bad shape. Any sensible people at tour headquarters in Daytona Beach, plus the LPGA players would certainly like those sponsors back. The firing of Carolyn Bivens is long over due, but how wrecked will the LPGA be before she gets the axe?
Ryan at Waggle Room is also commenting.
Another tournament looks to be in trouble now. From AP-
NEW YORK – Federal regulators on Tuesday charged Texas financier R. Allen Stanford and three of his firms with a “massive” fraud that centered around high-interest-rate certificates of deposit, and raided some of the companies’ offices.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Dallas, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Stanford orchestrated a fraudulent investment scheme centered on an $8 billion CD program that promised “improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates.”
Stanford’s assets, along with those of the three companies, were frozen. Stanford’s firms include Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, broker-dealer Stanford Group Co. and investment adviser Stanford Capital Management, which are both based in Houston.
If you don’t know, Stanford International sponsored the Aventura Florida LPGA event I covered as a member of the media last April. They were supposed to sponsor this year’s LPGA Tour Championship, the end event of the 2009 season. No word yet from the LPGA, but I expect to hear at least hopeful spin from the LPGA. Commissioner Carolyn Bivens sure knows how to pick some winners doesn’t she?
Is it too far a stretch to think the LPGA wish it had a mulligan so far as their past relationship with ADT goes? ADT’s sponsorship of the LPGA’s final event of the year came to an end last year.
Hat tip- Ryan at Waggle room
Update- I neglected to mention(or remember) Stanford also sponsors the PGA Tour stop in Memphis TN.
In another supposed money grab, the LPGA has given a long-time sponsor the shaft. From Ron Sirak at Golf World-
That the LPGA came into the 2009 season with only three fewer tournaments than last year was probably a small victory given the state of the global economy. Not expected was that it would lose another event last month—the Ginn Open—before it was to be played in April, a victim of the real-estate collapse that also claimed the Ginn Championship on the Champions Tour. Now, the LPGA is taking a calculated risk for the 2010 schedule by signing a lucrative new deal for the Korean television rights to LPGA events with J Golf, a subsidiary of Joongang Daily News. The new partner means severing a 15-year relationship with the Seoul Broadcasting System, and losing the SBS Open after the season-opening tournament at the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii.
While the matter of Korean television rights for LPGA events might seem like a minor issue, it is not. The income from those rights is the tour’s largest single revenue stream.
I prefer to follow the play of the tours than the economics, but I’m well aware of how big a part the television contracts with Japan and South are so far as LPGA revenue sources go. The LPGA has to buy air time in the United States for most of their tournaments and then sell advertising to recoup their costs.
Here’s the stinking part of this whole deal.
The contract with J Golf, which has yet to be announced by the tour or the network, but details of which were obtained by Golf World, is a multiyear deal likely worth in excess of $4 million annually, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. That is up significantly from the $2.25 million SBS says it paid to broadcast 30 events in Korea this year. Asked if his company would continue to sponsor the SBS Open when coverage moves to J Golf next year, Sang Y. Chun, president and CEO of SBS International, said: “Absolutely not.”
Chun, who said he was “disappointed, upset really” at losing the contract, said his feelings were “not about the money [but] about the way we were treated.”
In Asian society, saving face is important. It looks like to me the LPGA has really stomped on these people, otherwise Chun wouldn’t have said the words he did.
So what has that meanace Carolyn Bivens done? Alienate and lose a long-time LPGA sponsor for a slightly better deal with a company with no track record of backing women’s golf. We all know what happened when the tour gave the Shoprite Atlantic City tour stop the finger and replaced it with tournaments sponsored by Ginn Resorts. A little over two years later there are two holes in the schedule after Ginn pulled out of these events and Shoprite is gone too. The deal with J Golf isn’t for another tournament, but the effect is two fold. First the SBS Open is gone in 2010 when the LPGA already has 1/3 of its tournaments up for renewal at the same time an economic downturn is happening. Perhaps more importantly, the latest actions of the LPGA could make current sponsors re-think their relationship with the LPGA. For they can be dispensed with by this crazy commissioner who chases dollars at the same time she kicks sponsors in the pants.
Hound dog writes-
As I mentioned last night on Inside The LPGA, the increase in rights fees (approximately $2 million per year, almost double the previous amount) from the new deal is significantly offset by the loss of the $1.2 million purse from the SBS Open. If this event isn’t replaced on the 2010 schedule, the deal isn’t nearly as impressive.
If what Sirak wrote above is true, the difference between the deals was only a million. To me the LPGA came out a loser, 4 million from J Golf compared to 3 million from SBS plus the 1.2 million tournament purse. That’s a net 200,000 loss to me. Can Carolyn Bivens add?
Ryan at Waggleroom has a differing opinion-
On the surface, it’s easy to recall the situation with Ginn that led to the demise of the ShopRite event in Atlantic City. The LPGA Tour took the allure of big money from an organization with not nearly as sure footed as ShopRite. And now it is paying dearly. Still, given that the LPGA Tour is losing significant revenue by losing several tournaments this year, this may have been a forced move.
I don’t see anything forced at all in the changeover from SBS to J golf. All I see is another step on the road to disaster for the LPGA Tour if they allow their present commissioner to keep making these decisions.
I’ll say it again. Fire Carolyn Bivens now!
Another hole has been blown in the 2009 US Women’s professional golf schedule. From the Orlando Sentinel-
The recession has claimed another victim: the Ginn Open, the LPGA Tour’s lone event in Central Florida.
Ginn Sports Entertainment and Ginn Development Company announced Wednesday afternoon that they will no longer host, produce or sponsor professional golf tournaments, including the Ginn Open at Reunion Resort and the Champions Tour Ginn Championship in Palm Coast.
“The economy is rough, and it’s no surprise,” Ginn Open Tournament Director Linda Chen said.
This year’s Ginn Open had been slated for April 16-19, and it is unclear whether the LPGA Tour can find a replacement tournament for that point on the schedule.
The chances of a replacement being found between now and April rank up there with my winning the Florida lottery in any given drawing. It isn’t going to happen.
No one from the LPGA has commented on this latest tournament debacle. AP reports that VP of LPGA communications Connie Wilson as saying because of travel and schedules the tour would have no immediate comment.
Which might be true. Or Carolyn Bivens and other officials are in a bunker somewhere just like they were when their horrendous LPGA English policy was announced not by the tour, but by a member of the golf media. You mean there isn’t one person available on the cell phone right now? I find that hard to believe.
LPGA blogger Hound dog writes-
Despite the reality of the current economic situation, I am pissed off about this announcement. Thanks for waiting until only 11 weeks before your event to pull out, fellas. Thanks for giving the Tour absolutely no chance to replace your over-speculated asses. Thanks for shooting yet another hole in our schedule and removing one of its largest purses to boot. Thanks for giving our Commissioner a reason to alienate and then kick out one of the Tour’s longest-running sponsorships three years ago – since most folks are still buying groceries these days, I imagine the ShopRite people would already be preparing to host their ‘09 tournament if you guys hadn’t come barging in.
Hound Dog is right, it would have nice if the company didn’t wait so long to announce the inevitable. The demise of the Ginn Open comes as little surprise to people and blogger knowledgeable about the LPGA considering how the Ginn Tribute folded.
I wrote about the Shoprite debacle two years ago. To make way for Ginn, the LPGA gave the shaft to Shoprite who rather than take crappy dates on the schedule, pulled the plug on their Atlantic City event. It was an outrageous way to treat a long-time LPGA sponsor that earned Carolyn Bivens a Knucklehead award a few months later when she gave the shaft to another LPGA tournament sponsor, Wendy’s. Don’t forget ADT pulled their sponsorship of the year ending West Palm Beach tournament last year because of tournament pricing, not a change in marketing as the LPGA claims.
I wonder how LPGA headquarters will spin the Ginn Story? Some how I imagine a official speaking with the song ‘Don’t worry, be happy.’ playing in the background.
The LPGA will need luck to survive in the US over the next few years. In the meantime, I will repeat what I been saying multiple times for over two years. Carolyn Bivens has to go or the LPGA Tour is cooked.
A few extra notes-
There is no Florida tournament on the 2009 LPGA schedule now. The ADT is defunct, and the Stanford International which was played in the Miami area last year, has since moved to Texas.
The Ginn Open trophy was named after Kelly Jo Dowd, the mother of Dakoda Dowd a amateur who played in the inaugural tournament. Mrs Dowd died less than two years ago.
Her husband, Dakoda’s father, Mike Dowd was quoted as saying-
“It would have been phenomenal to have Kelly Jo’s name on that trophy for years to come, We got one year.”
One year is better than none. God bless the Dowd family. Mike Dowd also said-
“There’s going to be a lot of sad folks over this,” Mike Dowd said.
I’m betting there are a great many angry LPGA golfers because of this too.
For their once a year tour stop, The Hana Bank Kolon Championship. It will be played October 31-November 2nd at The Sky 72 Golf Club, Ocean Course in Incheon. The tournament dates back to 2001, when the inaugeral event was canceled after 9-11 occured.
This is a limited field event, with just 69 players. 12 of whom are KLPGA players, including this year’s British Open champ and Rolex#8 player in the world, Ji-Yai Shin. While Lorena Ochoa, Annika Sorenstam, and Yani Tseng aren’t playing, the field is still pretty strong. Defending champ Suzann Pettersen, Paula Creamer, and likely 2008 Comeback Player of the Year Helen Alfredsson are in the field.
Suzann Pettersen won last year’s event by one shot over Eun-Hi-Ji. The tournament was called after 36 holes due to bad weather.
Last year’s event was notable for a few things.
1- Pettersen was the first non-Korean winner of the tournament. Past winners include LPGA major champs Se Ri Pak and Grace Park, plus first time winners Shi Hyun ‘Cinderella’ Ahn, Jee Young ‘Jelly’ Lee, and Jin Jong Hong. Ahn, Lee, and Hong were all non-LPGA players at the time, and their wins earned them LPGA Tour cards. Could a KLPGA player do the same in 2008? Here’s one name to look out for, Sun Ju Ahn.
2- After the Sunday final round was canceled, some golf fans got upset. In a season ending post on the good, bad, and just bizarre for 2007 on the LPGA tour, I gave these protesters my ‘Pitchforks and Torches’ award. Who says LPGA golf fans aren’t enthusiastic.
A picture of Se Ri Pak(center) and company. Many of the golfers behind Se Ri publicly state that they took up the sport after seeing the Hall of Famer excel at the LPGA Tour starting in 1998.
It has been an excellent year for the South Korean ladies after the off 2007 where only four of them won on tour, and none took home a major Championship. After a ten month victory drought, Seon Hwa Lee, Eun Hi Ji, In-Bee Park, Ji Young Oh, Ji Yai Shin, and In-Kyung Kim all took home titles. Lee actually winning two times. Seven tournament wins, including two major championships. Shin at the British Open, and In-bee Park at the US Open. Three players from South Korea rank in the top 10 money winners, eight in the top 20*.
This tournament is important for players wanting to make the tour ending ADT Championship. The ADT has a one million dollar purse for the golfer who wins it. At present, Eight South Korean players have qualified for the field. At least Another five would qualify if the current points standing holds.
As of yet, no Carolyn Bivens sighting this week . Would she show her face in South Korea after the ‘English language policy‘ debacle of two months ago?
There is no North America television coverage of the tournament. The LPGA is off the air for 3 weeks as the tour travels through Asia.(China last week, Japan next week)
LPGA bloggers Hound Dog and The Constructivist have their own previews up.
*- 2007 LPGA Rookie of the Year Angela Park was born in Brazil, but has lived in the United States since age 8. She recently became a naturalized US citizen and has two brothers at present serving in the American armed forces. Some members of the media can’t keep it straight that Angela isn’t from South Korea. She’s never lived in the country. Park is currently #3 in points in order to qualify for the ADT Championship.
She answered questions from the golf media yesterday about the tour’s recently rescinded penalties for players who don’t speak enough English. First we’ll start with Golf Week’s Beth Ann Baldry-
GW: If that’s the case, then why did you change the policy?
CB: It isn’t a policy. It’s a program. What we did was rescind the playing suspension.
Golfweek: Can you take me through last week and how you went from Tuesday’s memo to Friday’s memo?
Carolyn Bivens: What we said in the policy was that we listened to the feedback.
First the Commisioner says it is a program not a policy. Then Bivens calls it a policy. Get me some dramamine fast. I’m feeling seasick.
The fun isn’t over yet.
GW: Looking back on the way everything developed, is there anything you would do differently? Is there anything the LPGA has learned from this?
CB: We learn from everything.
GW: Would you care to expand on that?
CB: The only thing I would expand on there is that this was not an announcement and it was not a policy. Unfortunately that is the way that it was portrayed.
The only mistake the Commish sees is that the dumb headed idea wasn’t properly presented by others. How about you Carolyn not going on vacation and letting Golfweek instead break the news rather than the LPGA Tour? I can think of a few other mistakes made but I’m guessing you’ll never fess up to them.
GW: Looking back on it now, do you wish you have discussed the penalty portion with more sponsors or . . .
CB: Sponsors never want to be part of these decisions.
What was it State Farm said a week ago about not liking the LPGA not communicating to them about the new policy or program or what ever and asking for their feedback.
The spewing of nonsense from Carolyn Bivens isn’t done yet. Compare what she said to Golfweek, and what Tommy Hicks reports for a Alabama newspaper.
She said the meeting was meant to address those issues, as well as issues that would assist players in marketing, communication and competition, but what was highlighted “was about 10 percent” of what was discussed. “We were addressing sponsors’ needs and requirements.”
LOL Bivens contradicts what she told Golfweek. Is this woman lying or out right unbalanced? In either case, Carolyn Bivens has no business running a professional sports organization. The LPGA would be wise to dump their commissioner and the sooner the better.
Hat tip- Ryan at Waggle room. I suggest all my readers read what Ryan has to say.
Let me note two things before getting to the topic-
1- This is my first time to write on this controversial subject. On August 13th I had heart valve surgery and only came home from the hospital on August 29th. In addition I have suffered from numbness in one hand since being operated on. While I started blogging again earlier this week, I didn’t comment on the LPGA policy. Complicated and long posts are difficult for me to do at this time.
2- My wife is Asian, Leonita born in the Philippines. I’ve lived in the Philippines, and have visited Japan, South Korea, Macau, China(Hong Kong) and Singapore at some time in my life. You may want to weigh this when considering what I write below.
The policy reversal comes after a week of heated criticism from the media, elected officials, and tournament sponsors. From LPGA.com-
The LPGA has received valuable feedback from a variety of constituents regarding the recently announced penalties attached to our effective communications policy. We have decided to rescind those penalty provisions.
After hearing the concerns, we believe there are other ways to achieve our shared objective of supporting and enhancing the business opportunities for every Tour player. In that spirit, we will continue communicating with our diverse Tour players to develop a better alternative. The LPGA will announce a revised approach, absent playing penalties, by the end of 2008.
The policy the LPGA is revising was broken by Golfweek a little over a week ago.
PORTLAND, Ore. – For the past several years, the LPGA has impressed upon its membership the importance of communicating effectively in English. As the game’s dominance shifts to the East, the LPGA has strengthened its stance. Learning English no longer is a tour suggestion; it’s a requirement.
At a mandatory South Korean player meeting Aug. 20 at the Safeway Classic, the tour informed its largest international contingent that beginning in 2009, all players who have been on tour for two years must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills. Failure would result in a suspended membership.
When I first read this, I was deeply troubled. Did the LPGA Tour realize the PR and legal nightmare they were possibly stepping into? The moment a player was suspended, a discrimination lawsuit was likely to follow. One that even if the tour won, would be financially costly in addition to be destructive on a public relations level. Asia based companies are sponsors of LPGA tournaments, plus the tour gets large broadcast fees from South Korea and Japan. The LPGA seemed to be self-inflicting a wound on itself.
Also when Hall of Famer Se Ri Pak joined the LPGA, her English skills were very poor and she was shy to do interviews. If such a policy was in state in 1998, would the tour have been graced by one of its greatest players ever?
Pak’s English has improved greatly. As could be seen after her 2006 LPGA Championship win. Pak remains shy to some extent, but not because she has trouble communicating in English.
There are non-golf gestures by Asian players that have been appreciated by the public. Like when Mi Hyun Kim donated $100,000 US dollars to Kansas tornado victims in 2007.
Ron Sirak at Golf World wrote that the final straw as to non-English speaking players came when Eun Hi Ji did her winner’s acceptance speech at Rochester in June only through a translator. How true this was is open to conjecture.
Ji explained herself and took some blame in this article-
“At the time, I spoke Korean in the interview. I experienced pricks of conscience as I felt if the latest decision targets me. I’ll pay more attention to improving my English.”
There have been rumblings about the Asian players for some time. Dating back at least to Jan Stephenson’s magazine interview in 2003 where the Australian born golfer said Asians were ruining the US based tour. A golf writer Craig Dolch who I highly respect also seemed overwhelmed by the amount of Asian players qualifying for this year’s ADT Championship.(I’d supply a link, but Craig’s golf blog was taken down after he stopped working for the Palm Beach Post in August.) If the field was set today, over half the field will have been born in Asia(Mostly South Korea, but one player from Japan and Taiwan also) compared to only 4 native born Americans making the field. I haven’t scrutunized the list thoroughly, American born Jane Park and Brazilian born but naturalized US citizen Angela Park may be getting counted in these lists. Both players are of South Korean heritage.
Also note 2008 saw Asian born golfers win three of the LPGA’s four major championships. In fact all the majors were won by players whose first language isn’t English. Lorena Ochoa taking home the Nabisco in addition to Inbee Park winning at the US Open, Yani Tseng at the LPGA Championship, and Ji-Yai Shin at the British Open. This and the lack of success of US players has caused a lot of grumbling from the media and some fans.
Is it nationalism or thinly veiled racism? I’m both a fan of the LPGA, and been a credentialed member of the media who covers the tournaments. While doing the later, I’ve seen one or two members of the media mocking the English proficiency of some tour players. So honestly I think a little bit of racism is at play.
Back to the LPGA’s policy. As recently as Monday, LPGA Tour Commissioner Carolyn Bivens defended the new policy to both Golfweek and Golf World magazines. Saying players being fluent in English was needed as part of the Tour’s business model. Lisa Mickey explaining-
Sponsors and pro-am participants pay money for personal encounters with professionals on the golf course. For sponsors, golf tournaments are an advertising tool and a corporate entertainment tool. The LPGA’s Kraft Nabisco Championship, for example, is a well-established way for food and grocery vendors to network against the backdrop of a professional golf tournament alongside top women golf pros.
Plenty of corporate sponsors align themselves with the NBA and NFL, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will go one-on-one with Kobe or run downfield for a bomb from Brett Favre. Golf is unique and personal and when people are spending money in this environment, they do it for the chance to spend five or so hours on a golf course with a real playing professional. At the end of the day, if that pro hasn’t been able to utter a single “Nice shot,” then the odds are pretty high that the amateur spending substantial dollars won’t be back next year. Too much of that hurts the tournament. Enough of that hurts the tour.
The LPGA certainly has embraced its global membership and its global membership has made it a much more interesting tour, but while professional golf may be fun and games to the public, it is still, at the end of the day, a business. And, as mentioned before, this business depends solely on the personal satisfaction of check writers based on their experiences with the pros. If the pros can’t communicate, the experience is not a valid return on investment for those individuals sponsoring events and playing in pro-ams. Pro-ams and sponsorships secure tournament purses. Without the purses, there are no tournaments. And without tournaments, there are no tours.
While I don’t agree with some of what Ms. Mickey writes, I still recomend you read all of her column.
Pro-Am day is arguably my favorite day to attend a tournament when I’m not covering one. Players are more laid back, and the atmosphere is more fun than serious in nature.
Players communicating with their playing partners is important, no doubt about it. These people are paying money to spend time with LPGA pros. But is English proficiency needed for it? Helping an amateur golfer with their swing, putting stroke, or other golf course techniques whether done verbally in English or non-verbally in English but by other means of communication would seem equally valuable.
I attended the 2005 ADT Pro-Am where West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel played with South Korea’s Soo Young Kang. Kang’s English ability is fair at best, but her playing partners enjoyed playing with ‘The Fashion Model of the Fairways’. So much so, Frankel came back to watch Kang play on Saturday and Sunday.
After the new policy was reported in the news, criticism was fast in coming. The New York Times, golf writers, newspaper columnists of both the generic and golf variety chiming in saying this was a bad idea or saying the policy was clumsily announced or both. The list is long, and I will give a brief sampling.
The New York Times-
Here is a thought-experiment for the executives at the Ladies Professional Golf Association. What would American sports look like if all the major sports associations required athletes prove that they are conversant in English? That is essentially what the L.P.G.A. has mandated with a new rule that will require all golfers who have been on tour for two years to pass a test of their spoken English, beginning in 2009.
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Women have been fighting against discrimination in golf for decades, as Augusta National Golf Club — home of the Masters Tournament and still lacking a single female member — shamefully demonstrates. For the L.P.G.A. to impose discriminatory rules on its own members is not only offensive, it’s self-destructive.
The LPGA blogger known as Hound Dog said-
My opinion? I am sad that America’s isolationist (or is it elitist?) tendencies have backed the LPGA into this corner. The Tour is stuck between its home society which insists that the other 90% of the world conform to its words and rules, and a remote one which delivers a large portion of its product and revenue. I am a little surprised that the Tour sided with the former in this case – what happened to “money talks”?
Randall Mell of the Sun-Sentinel wrote-
LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens makes it harder on herself, I think.
Her heart is often in the right place, in being a champion for her players, in fighting hard to get them a better position in the sports marketplace and a more secure future, but her tactics so often confuse, baffle and stream roll.
For a former newspaper executive, she doesn’t really seem to understand the value of PR, or communicating her goals effectively.
There’s no massage in her messages, which hit us too often like blindside hammers. That’s been a staple in her three-year reign. We get focused on the wrong things when clumsiness overwhelms direction. We get caught up debating her tactics so much that we fail to see the good that’s intended.
This new mandate to force foreign players to speak proficient English or face suspension from the tour is another example. It promises to mostly affect Koreans, with 45 of them on the LPGA Tour.
Really, it’s a good idea that Koreans become proficient at English. It’s good for them and the tour.
I agree with Randall that the way the policy was made public was very badly handled. Ryan at GNN agrees. I think the threat of suspensions was discriminatory, but felt the Asian players do need to learn better English. A well thought out plan by the LPGA to facilitate this would have been far wiser, and would have avoided the PR nightmare of the last ten days.
Some people did defend the policy, and I feel none were being racist in doing so. Christine Brennan at USA Today, like Lisa Mickey, defending Carolyn Bivens and the policy-
Lawyers weighed in. PGA Tour players, who rarely if ever give the LPGA the time of day, added their two cents. It can safely be said that nearly everyone was aghast.
If only all those people had taken a moment to think — had stepped away from their shot, to use a golf analogy — they might have decided to go after this news with their pitching wedge rather than a sledgehammer.
If they had done that, it would have been noted that the LPGA and the PGA Tour have almost nothing in common, except for the word golf. While the PGA Tour is swimming in cash, most LPGA events live and die by selling the opportunity to play with the pros in weekly pro-ams. It’s an experience unique to golf, akin to an NBA star having to play a basketball game every week with sponsors in different cities or a major league baseball player having to spend hours helping the owner learn the basics of playing shortstop.
This is not an idle exercise for an LPGA player. She is expected to interact, offer advice and tell stories with her foursome, which is filled with sponsors or their customers paying anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000 per person for the experience. If those sponsors can’t converse with the player (65% of LPGA events are in the USA), the tournament often hears about it. And if the tournament doesn’t do something about it, the sponsor might decide not to come back next year, especially in these tough economic times.
Overall reaction was negative. Lawyers saying the policy was discriminatory and even some legislators in California voicing their objections. Truthfully I think politicians who worry about sports have better things to do with their time.
#1 Player in the world, Lorena Ochoa, called the policy ‘drastic’.
The LPGA probably rethought this policy after protests from two prominent tour sponsors became public. Michael Bush at Adage reporting-
Saying it was “flabbergasted” by the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s new policy requiring “effective communication in English on the part of all of our Tour members,” State Farm is urging the group to reconsider — or the insurer may reconsider its sponsorship.
State Farm is both a general sponsor of the LPGA as well as the sponsor of the State Farm Classic Tournament.
“It’s something we are dumfounded by,” said Kip Diggs, media-relations specialist at the insurer, which is a general sponsor of the league as well as of the State Farm Classic Tournament in Springfield, Ill. “We don’t understand this and don’t know why they have done it, and we have strongly encouraged them to take another look at this.”
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Mr. Diggs, however, said State Farm was unaware that the LPGA was contemplating any such policy. While he would not disclose the value of State Farm’s LPGA sponsorship, which runs through next year, he said the policy was something that the company would take into consideration when deciding whether to continue its relationship with the league when its contract expires.
What Mr. Diggs said contradicts the claims from LPGA headquarters that sponsors were consulted before the new policy was made. State Farm is one of the tour’s biggest sponsors.
State Farm isn’t the only sponsor taking note. David Peikin, senior director-corporate communications at Choice Hotels International, said, “We have a great deal of interest in the intentions of the LPGA on this subject. Based on our understanding, this policy is currently under review by the LPGA, and a final decision and any related details will be determined over the next four months. Until that time, we will be closely monitoring LPGA news and announcements.”
It comes as no surprise that the LPGA reversed itself only a short time after these protests were made. The Tour can’t afford to antagonize sponsors they have now when the tour is in danger of losing tournaments, or lost ones already.
Ron Sirak wrote today-
Given that all the Europeans on tour speak English, as well as the handful of players from Latin America, the policy clearly was aimed at the Koreans. And to offend the Korean community was not only wrong, it was bad business. The tour’s single biggest revenue stream is Korean TV money. What is to be gained by offending that community?
The ultimate silliness about this entire situation is the small number of players it really affected. A well-placed source within the LPGA hierarchy said there were “perhaps a dozen” Korean players on tour who did not possess the English skills the LPGA desired. A caddie who works for a Korean player placed the number at “about five to seven.”
Then what the hell was this all about?
Lost in the entire issue has been one that strikes at the heart of the matter, and at the heart of women’s golf — if not at golf itself. The large contingent of Asian players — primarily Korean — on the LPGA Tour would be absorbed more easily if the Americans just played better. The language situation was not as much of an issue last year when Americans were winning.
In 2007, nine Americans won LPGA events, and, for the most part, they were the right nine: Morgan Pressel, Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Brittany Lincicome, Stacy Prammanasudh, Meaghan Francella, Nicole Castrale and Sherri Steinhauer.
This year, the only Americans to win are Creamer (twice) and Leta Lindley. The majors were won by Lorena Ochoa (Mexico), Yani Tseng (Taiwan), Inbee Park (Korea) and Ji-Yai Shin (Korea). Of those four, only Shin struggles with English. It is no coincidence, I’m guessing, that this policy was imposed in a down year for American players.
Ouch and I thought I was critical of LPGA HQ. Sirak concludes by saying- “This was a black eye that could have been avoided. The LPGA was hit by a sucker punch — and it was the sucker.”
We’ll have to wait some time before knowing if the wrong headed policy will cause damage to the LPGA Tour. What has happened in the last ten days reinforces what I been loudly saying for over two years. Commissioner Carolyn Bivens has to go before she ruins the LPGA Tour. That said, it is time to rest those three numb fingers of mine.
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