Part of the difference between team and individual sports is that professional teams, in the effort to win (because winning normally leads to higher revenues) need to hire players, and if a foreign player who can't speak the language will help them win, a team-owner will sign the player and lobby within the sport's governing body to soft-pedal any regulations that might limit or hinder that player's participation.

In golf, tennis, etc., every player is his/her own "team" and to a lesser extent, his/her own "owner." (Individual players don't weild the clout of team owners in representing their own interests because, for one thing, there are too many of them.) They don't have a Big Daddy running interference for them with the higher-ups governing the sport, protecting them from hostile press, providing companion/translators, etc.

The LPGA ruling body apparently believes that the English-language requirement will help PR, at least in the long run, by assuring that players will be able to answer questions and generally represent themselves competantly in an increasingly English-speaking word.

In the short run, they may be making a move that looks nasty and overbearing to the likes of some of us, but they may very well judge that private citizens with an abundance of sympathy for non-English speakers are not the constituency they need to please, anyway.