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 yesterday in Spanish, joining a chorus of male players perplexed by the LPGA Tour's decision to 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.

Cabrera and Choi are in Norton, Mass., for the Deutsche Bank Championship which begins today at the TPC of Boston. This is the second of four playoff events in the FedEx Cup.

BOXING

DE LA HOYA WILL FIGHT PACQUIAO DEC. 6

Oscar De La Hoya finally has an opponent for his farewell fight — only the Golden Boy's tantalizing matchup with Manny Pacquiao might not be his final bout after all.

De La Hoya and Pacquiao have confirmed their plan to meet Dec. 6 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, matching the most popular star in boxing with arguably the sport's best pound-for-pound fighter.

After Pacquiao, the dynamic Filipino lightweight, agreed to move up 12 pounds to welterweight, De La Hoya inked a deal for what's certain to be boxing's most lucrative bout since his split-decision loss last year to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the richest fight in boxing history.

Yet De La Hoya (39-5-0, 30 KOs) changed the fight's stakes yesterday when he acknowledged he wasn't sure he'll retire afterward. De La Hoya repeatedly had said he would quit boxing after this year, but his inability to land a rematch with Mayweather in September might have altered his plans.

"Let's just say my foot's got caught in the door," De La Hoya said. "My focus is my training. My focus is my next fight. I'm not going to talk about retirement."

Pacquiao is 47-3-2 with 35 KOs.

SOCCER

HAWAI'I'S CHING ON U.S. TEAM FOR QUALIFIERS

Defenders Danny Califf, Michael Orozco and Marvell Wynne were added to the U.S. roster for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Midfielder Ricardo Clark and Hawai'i's Brian Ching, a Kamehameha Schools alum, were among 20 players selected yesterday by U.S. coach Bob Bradley. Injured midfielder Pablo Mastroeni was dropped along with defender Jay DeMerit.

The U.S. team gathers in Miami starting Monday and leaves Sept. 4 for Havana, where it plays Cuba two days later. The Americans host T&T at Brideview, Ill., four days later.

Eighteen players can dress for each match. Defender Steve Cherundolo is suspended for the game at Cuba following his ejection Aug. 20 at Guatemala, where the Americans won 1-0 in their semifinal round opener.

OBITUARY

WARREN WAS ONE OF TOP WOMEN TRIATHLETES

Barbara Warren, one of the world's elite endurance athletes in her age group and one-half of a well-known pair of triathlete twins, has died after breaking her neck in a bike crash at the Santa Barbara Triathlon. She was 65.

Warren, of San Diego, died Tuesday at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital when her family told doctors to take her off a ventilator, her twin sister Angelika Drake told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Warren crashed her bike on a downhill road about halfway through the 34-mile cycling section of the race Saturday, race director Joe Coito said.

Warren was paralyzed from the neck down and was breathing with the aid of the ventilator. Drake said her sister told the family by blinking and nodding that she wanted to die.

"I talked to her and she nodded over and over and over again. She wanted to leave," Drake said. "No athlete would like to have a life with only their eyes talking."

Warren won her age group in the 2003 Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawai'i. She competed in the race, the world's top triathlon, 13 times and finished in the top five in her age group eight times.