HOYLAKE, ENGLAND | Each Wednesday morning of Open week, the chief executive of the R&A faces a grilling not unlike that which the chairman of a public company undergoes at the company’s annual general meeting, except that those giving the grilling are not shareholders but representatives of the world’s golf media gathered for the fourth major championship of the year.
It is the most public annual address given by the chief executive, the moment when he addresses the issues in golf and is a reminder that the R&A governs golf around the world except in the U.S. and Mexico. This meeting has been a feature of Open weeks since Michael Bonallack’s time as secretary of the R&A (1983-1999) and, probably, Keith Mackenzie’s before that. In other words, a long time.
So, it was that soon after 11 a.m. here on Wednesday that Martin Slumbers took his seat in a tent adjoining the clubhouse of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, where the 151st Open Championship would begin the next day. He wore an R&A-issue windcheater bearing the Open logo with its collar modishly turned up. His grey hair was slightly windblown, the frames of his glasses were dark and not multi-coloured as favoured by Keith Pelley, chief executive of the DP World Tour, and his trousers were navy, not white as often worn by Seth Waugh, chief executive officer of the PGA of America.
This was not an arena he was born to inhabit. He spent 30 years in banking, most recently with Deutsche Bank, where Waugh had been chief executive of Deutsche Bank Americas before taking over at the PGA of America in 2018. A colleague at that bank once said of Slumbers: “He was very good and organised at the back-office sort of stuff.” Now he was front and centre, more lucid in his explanation of the R&A’s work than Bonallack though perhaps with less of the gravitas that Peter Dawson, his predecessor at the R&A, had displayed.
Almost immediately Slumbers referred to golf’s civil war, noting the 6th June agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, saying, “We’re not party to the agreement, and while we absolutely welcome an end to the disruption in the men’s professional game, there is a lot still to be understood. We will await the outcome with interest.”
“That is what I really care about: to ensure that golf is thriving in 50 years.” – Martin Slumbers
He said he had sent his best wishes to Jay Monahan and welcomed his return two days earlier to work as commissioner of the PGA Tour. And Slumbers said that in their actions to do with the distance issue, he was following what Mike Whan, chief executive of the USGA, had once said: Doing nothing is not an option.
Slumbers, remember, is a former banker, and as such it was no surprise to hear that as a custodian of the game he was very concerned about the effect of rising purses in the men’s professional game. If he mentioned the word “sustainability” once, he mentioned it 10 times. “We have to balance the prize fund at the Open [it was raised to $16.5 million this year] with ensuring appropriate investment in grass-roots and new golf initiatives, ensuring pathways are in place from elite amateur golf to the pro game … promoting women and girls’ golf, both amateur and professional.”
You could put this another way and say golf has to come up with an approach that is sustainable (that word again) in the long term and not just a solution in the short term. “That,” he said with real emphasis and considerable passion, “is what I really care about: to ensure that golf is thriving in 50 years.”
He announced the R&A had inaugurated the African Amateur Championship, a 72-hole stroke-play event for 72 men from that continent to debut in February at Leopard Creek in South Africa, with the winner receiving an invitation into the 2024 Open. This event would complement the existing amateur championships organised by the R&A in the Asia Pacific and Latin America. It is all part of the R&A’s attempts to grow the game around the world, as well as creating a pathway that will enable players from Africa to play at the highest level.
The R&A is sometimes criticised for being too male, which may occasionally be justified but not always. It may be, for example, the only organising body in golf that has a female deputy chairman of a championship committee and another female on the committee. In announcing the African Amateur for 72 men, have the R&A made a mistake in saying that a women’s event only for 20 elite players from the region will also be held at the same time as the men’s event at Leopard Creek in South Africa? Only 20?
Slumbers talked on, touching other issues such as the lack of coverage of the Open by a terrestrial broadcaster. He declined to say much about the proposed Model Local Rule proposed jointly by the R&A and the USGA, one that might concern the type of ball used in elite amateur and professional men’s competition. If the row with LIV is golf’s civil war, controlling the distance a golf ball travels is the game’s ugly stepchild. The MLR is in a comment period until the end of next month and until then, Slumbers said, he didn’t want to comment about any remarks made by leading players.
He offered little new about the Official World Golf Ranking points wrangle with LIV players, another ongoing discussion. He said he was pleased that 30 percent of golfers are women “and that wasn’t the case 10 years ago.” He touched briefly on the new par-3 17th hole at Hoylake, aware that criticism already has been made of it, but pointed out how the 12th at Augusta National, the 17th at TPC Sawgrass and the eighth at Royal Troon were all really good short holes. And he even cracked a joke at a journalist’s expense.
Slumbers has a reputation for being a safe pair of hands, and this performance did nothing to alter that impression.
For Open Championship first- and second-round tee times, click HERE.