It is ironic in this regard that there is movement afoot to make golf an Olympic sport by 2016. Ironic because a supporter of the application to the International Golf Federation is the LPGA, which has just announced that all players on the tour must be conversant in English within two years or face possible suspension. Apparently, LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn Bivens met with the tour’s 45 South Korean players a couple of weeks ago, prior to the Safeway Classic, informing them of the new decision.

To call this decision “moronic” would be an understatement. The new rule apparently calls for “passable” English. Is the metric for this a TOEFL score used for college admissions? Or is it merely being able to say “thank you” in the post-tourney interview when a foreign player wins? Golf is an international sport. Players from 20 countries are represented in the top 100 male players in the world, and from 16 countries among the women.

There are now 121 international players from 26 countries on the LPGA tour. They have won 19 of 24 events this year -- six were won by Lorena Ochoa of Mexico and seven by women from Asia. South Korean players alone make up over one-third of the top 30 awards earners. A Taiwanese player (Yani Tseng) won the LPGA; a Korean (Park In-bee) won the U.S. Open. Ochoa, Tseng and Park all speak English, but if they or others did not, does this mean they cannot play on the tour anymore? Not only is this the first professional sport to institute such a discriminatory policy, it does so against the very future of the women’s game. Over 40 foreign players are competing currently in the LPGA developmental futures tours.

When organized sport goes through any sort of transition, the ruling bodies naturally seek to adjust. One can understand that the LPGA may feel women’s golf’s appeal and TV ratings and endorsement deals may decline relative to other sports if its players cannot interact in English with fans or corporate sponsors. But since when does what a player says matter more than how they perform? Will corporations want to sponsor a mediocre player who speaks English over one that hits them straighter and longer but speaks French or Swedish only? Are fans captivated by a fluid but powerful golf swing or by a perfect sentence uttered by the next LPGA tour leader?

The LPGA should take a chill pill. Rather than fear the wave of South Korean and other foreign women golfers, it should embrace it and even exploit it. Major League baseball has created, for example, a huge foreign sales market for its merchandise, particularly in Asia as players from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea came stateside. Japan alone today accounts for 60 percent of MLB’s foreign sales revenues. The National Basketball Association sees China as its biggest market in the future. Neither of these sports have stipulated that Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets or Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees must speak “passable” English or be suspended.

To the credit of foreign female players, they have dutifully heeded the new instruction and continue to work on their English in between practice rounds and tournaments. Presumably they do so because they cherish the honor to play in the LPGA and because of their pure love of the game. But as Angel Cabrera, last year’s U.S. Open champion and an Argentine aptly noted, “You don’t need to speak English to play golf.”

What makes sport so magical is that it is the great equalizer in human society. Sport gives athletes from different parts of the world a common mode of interaction and respect. In Beijing two weeks ago, Michael Phelps’ ability in the pool traversed any language barriers around the world. The universal language of golf is golf, not English. Young girls around the world learning the game need only be taught this phrase (in any language): “Shoot 67 consistently, and everyone will understand you.”

Victor Cha is director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Pacific Council. He is the author of a new book, “Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia” (Columbia, 2008).