Here at Waggle Room, we're going to do the cliche thing around this time of year and do a countdown of the top such and suches of the year.  For us, we're going to do the 9 golf stories from the year that fascinated us.

Arguably, there was no issue this year more controversial than English program on the LPGA Tour.  What had begun as a program sponsored by Kolon and offering constant cheap plugs for Rosetta Stone (the official language learning software of the LPGA Tour) in press releases, turned into a firestorm. 

Beth Ann Baldry kicked off the story by reporting in Golfweek that the LPGA Tour would be requiring players to gain certain levels of proficiency in English or, after sufficient time to achieve that proficiency (2  years on Tour), face suspension from the Tour for failure to comply.

The audience for the players-only meeting?  South Korean players.  Only South Korean players.

It set off a reaction to Carolyn Bivens and the LPGA Tour's program that has become all too common during Ms. Bivens' tenure as LPGA Tour Commissioner.  Journalists weighed in - many of whom had no idea of the total story.  Fans weighed in with the same lack of clarity.  Eventually, the LPGA Tour backed down and said that they would introduce a new program in 2009 that would not include the threat of suspension as a component.

Though the story itself was intriguing (and, to me, insulting on so many levels), the resulting fallout really displayed where our culture is. 

Journalists wrote multiple stories about Asian-born players and how they handle themselves on the Tour. 

They wrote about how Asian-born players appear dominated by their parents in many aspects of their lives and how English might liberate them, per a Bivens quotation.

Some wrote about how proud sponsors and players were when an Asian player could deliver a short, but successful acceptance speech in English.

It got to the point where journalists were seemingly looking for any angle to offer a Yankee pat on the back to Asian players that understood the importance of learning English and were making their best effort to do it.  While I agree that anyone is to be commending for trying to better themselves through education, the kind of writing that we were seeing edged on patronization.

As I have written before, Americans really do seem to be an embracing people.  They love underdogs.  They love when people grovel after having done something wrong.  They want to forgive and cheer.  But, it seems like we are still reluctant to accept people from other cultures and backgrounds that are so transparently different than ours. 

This LPGA language story really just highlighted xenophobic tendencies in aspects of our culture.  A lot of Americans look down on people that can't speak English within our borders. 

And, don't get me wrong, English is the business language of the world.  The LPGA has good reason to encourage players to learn some portion of the langauge (without threat of suspension).  Hell, anyone should try to learn English - even Americans that don't seem to do well with it.

Americans simply have a harder time identifying with someone that doesn't speak English well or at all.  The LPGA Tour identified this and set out to do something about it.  They took it too far and scaled it back.  Still, the resulting aftershocks of reaction from journalists and many fans left me wondering if the LPGA Tour was trying to shield Americans from their own biases in the hopes that it would draw eyes to the action on the course, as opposed to the broken language off of it.