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PGA tour star Angel Cabrera, a powerful Argentine who rose from an impoverished childhood, doesn't believe English should be a requirement to play golf.

updated 9:54 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2008

NORTON, Mass. - Imagine what could have happened to Angel Cabrera if he belonged to a tour that required its players to speak English.

A powerful Argentine who rose from an impoverished childhood, he won the U.S. Open last year at Oakmont by holding off Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. In the hours after the trophy presentation, Cabrera made his way through a maze of media interviews in Spanish with an interpreter at his side.

Under a new LPGA Tour policy effective next year, Cabrera might have been suspended. Or, he might not have played at all if an official on that tour deemed he was ineffective in English.

“You don’t have to speak English to play golf,” Cabrera said Thursday in Spanish, joining a chorus of male players perplexed by the LPGA Tour’s decision to be punish women golfers for not speaking English in pro-ams, trophy presentations and media interviews.

K.J. Choi of South Korea recalled his rookie season on the PGA Tour in 2000, when his English was so limited that he often got lost going to the golf course because he couldn’t read street signs. He wasn’t comfortable enough to speak English for five years, despite constant study.

Asked about the LPGA Tour’s policy, he shook his head.

“It is a difficult situation,” Choi said in English. “It is good for them to help players learn English. When I learned English, I became a better player. But to suspend them? I don’t think so.”

And if the PGA Tour had a policy like that in 2000?

“I would have had to go home,” Choi said.

Golfweek magazine first reported the LPGA Tour’s new English-only policy Monday, leaving the tour scrambling to explain and defend itself over the past several days as the issue has stayed on the forefront of public discussion.

The LPGA Tour didn’t get this much attention when Annika Sorenstam said she was retiring.

“We have been puzzled, if not surprised, by some of the reactions,” said deputy commissioner Libba Galloway, who previously was the LPGA’s top attorney. “We see this as a pro-international move.”

Galloway said title sponsors offer individual endorsement deals to players — Sorenstam has a longtime deal with Kraft — and players who can’t interact in pro-ams or with sponsors because of limited English are hurting themselves financially.

The LPGA Tour is still working on the policy, which will be delivered to players at the end of the year. She said its professional development group is consulting with outside experts, and the LPGA will administer the evaluation itself.

Players won’t have to be fluent, rather what Galloway described as “effective.”

“You have to interact effectively with your pro-am partners. You need to be able to do media interviews. And you need to give a winner’s acceptance speech in English,” she said. “They must speak at a level that effectively accomplishes those three things.”

Strangely absent during this debate is LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn Bivens. According to Golfweek, Bivens held a meeting with only the South Koreans last week in Portland, which led some to believe they were being singled out.

Galloway said Bivens was returning from the West Coast on Monday and Tuesday, and “I drew the long straw” to handle media inquiries.

The LPGA Tour for the last three years has offered language training through a Rosetta Stone online program and has offered a cross-cultural program for its international players.

But there has never been a mandate until now.

“It’s not a sign that it’s not working,” Galloway said. “What we’re seeing is that a handful of players don’t speak to the level they need to be.”

But if only a few players struggle with English, why develop a policy equipped with a penalty?