As other LPGA golfers were on the practice green and driving range earlier this week, Cindy LaCrosse sat inside a dining hall at Pinnacle Country Club, learning Spanish.
¡Qué impresionante! (“Very impressive”).
LaCrosse glanced at a book as she tried to learn enough Spanish to have a conversation at the grocery store in her native Florida and do an interview at the LPGA’s Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Asya Kislyuk, LaCrosse’s tutor, sat across the table and chatted with the third-year pro in Spanish.
“She had studied it a little bit in high school, but the way that we approach language is very, very different than a lecture or a school setting,” said Kislyuk, who has taught English, Spanish and French to LPGA players. She also speaks Russian, Italian and Hebrew.
The LPGA Tour is more multicultural than other professional leagues, and it’s become a much bigger melting pot with the recent influx of Asian players. At the same time, the LPGA has expanded well beyond American soil, with tournaments in countries such as Brazil, France and Malaysia.
To avoid getting lost in translation, around 50 LPGA players hire Kislyuk and the other tutors with the Language Training Center to teach them a second — and sometimes third — language. They’ll meet up every week at different stops on the LPGA schedule and work on their vocabulary.
Kislyuk arrived to Rogers a few days ago, and she was gone by the time the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship teed off Friday morning. There was no reason for her to hang around. After all, players had more important things to worry about than their Spanish diction.
When it’s the offseason, she’ll hold language sessions with players over Skype and FaceTime.
Asian players want to learn English, so they can do interviews, talk to sponsors and joke with those amateur players they’re paired with during pro-ams prior to American tournaments. At the same time, American golfers hope to learn a second language for when they’re playing overseas.
It sometimes comes in handy to know how to say, “Have you seen my ball?” in French.
“We were working with (South Korea’s) Chella (Choi) earlier today, and she was in the playoff last weekend in Canada,” said Martin George, President of the Language Training Center. “And so she’s really doing a lot more interviews this year.
“So today she wanted to focus on, ‘Hey, I need to be able to answer these questions and everybody asks me how’s my round. What was my best hole?’”
The tutors don’t devote as much time teaching players how to be fluent in a particular language. They instead try to teach golfers how to respond to questions they might get asked around the course and then be able to ask questions back.
Of course, there are those times when a player might call or text George, wondering how to speak to a car mechanic or potentially new agent.
The progress is easy to detect.
Asian players, who once needed their caddies or managers to serve as their interpreters during interviews, can now hold conversations in English and answer questions about their birdie putts and powerful tee shots.
“The international players know that if they’re going to play an American tour, they really want to put their best foot forward,” Martin said. “So Asians in general and even the international players are very serious about education.”
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Alex Abrams is the assistant sports editor for NWA Media.