Golf chief can walk away from game with head held high after huge global growth

Martin Slumbers has made his mark during ten-year reign as The R&A’s CEO

One of the many treats in my job has been paying the occasional visit over the years to the office of The R&A CEO, which, of course, is located in the iconic The Royal & Ancient Clubhouse and has a balcony overlooking the first tee and 18th green on the Old Course.

It’s been occupied for the past ten years by Martin Slumbers, who hosted a media roundtable in it for a spell and, before handing the reins over to Mark Darbon, conducted a small number of one-to-one interviews there over a couple of days last week.

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The R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, right, pictured on his office balcony with  Peter Zaffino, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of AIG, sponsor of the Women’s Open The R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, right, pictured on his office balcony with  Peter Zaffino, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of AIG, sponsor of the Women’s Open
The R&A CEO Martin Slumbers, right, pictured on his office balcony with Peter Zaffino, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of AIG, sponsor of the Women’s Open | Luke Walker/Getty Images

It was an honour to be one of those on that list and I’d like to think it was down to the fact we’ve had mutual respect for each other through our respective roles and are both very passionate about the game in general but the amateur and grass-roots side in particular.

“I have loved the international matches as I love seeing the next generation,” said a smiling Slumbers of the Curtis Cup and Walker Cup especially but also other events run by the governing body. “It gives me as much enjoyment as watching any of the best players in the world.”

It was fitting, therefore, that his final tournament in the role was the Curtis Cup at Sunningdale, where, with Slumbers filling the role as official starter, Catriona Matthew led Great Britain & Ireland to victory over the United States at the end of a gripping three-day contest.

“I was asked to be the starter for the Walker Cup at St Andrews last year, but I said no because I felt it should be a Scot and John Grant (the director of golf at St Andrews Links Trust) did it, which was wonderful for him,” added Slumbers. “So for GB&I to win the Curtis Cup in my last international match and be part of it through being the starter will always be a special memory and the picture from it is one of my profiles on social media. Yeah, it meant a lot that week.”

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As does, and rightly so, The R&A having created GolfIt!, its community facility in Glasgow that opened last year and has proved a massive success. In some of those early roundtable discussions with us, Slumbers had talked about how he’d been impressed by family-focussed facilities like Wellsgreen Golf Centre between Kirkcaldy and Leven and, though too modest to say so himself, GolfIt! will indeed be a huge part of his legacy.

“Yes, it was quite challenging,” he replied to being asked if it had been a difficult one to sell inside The R&A. “My board was fantastic, but we have invested a lot of money in it and we had never done that before. I was put through the scrutiny and there are some people who maybe still don’t get it, but I think long term it will be seen as a game-changer for golf.”

A measure of others sharing that opinion has been the [Arnold] Palmer Foundation supporting it in its first venture outside the US. “I felt it was very important for The R&A to have what I called a physical manifestation of what we believe the game should be run like and GolfIt! is what this is,” said Slumbers. “You know it’s The R&A, but the person who is going there as a visitor probably doesn’t, so it’s not caught up with the wider perception of The R&A or reputation.

“I remember going to the leader of Glasgow City Council and saying ‘golf used to be a game for the people and a place in a community and along the way we have lost that. I see our future for the sport as sort of back to the future and that’s why I would like to buy Lethamhill Golf Club, as it was called then’.

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“We’ve had over 10,000 schoolkids coming up to the facility and we have a number of local people in the community who work there. Yeah, I am very proud of it and we will keep making it more successful and hopefully in the future others will evolve. I’m not a Scot, but I’ve lived in Scotland for ten years now and I thought it was fantastic that we did it in Scotland and Glasgow is a great place for it.”

The R&A’s GolfIt! facility in Glasgow has proved a huge success since it opened last year. Picture: The R&AThe R&A’s GolfIt! facility in Glasgow has proved a huge success since it opened last year. Picture: The R&A
The R&A’s GolfIt! facility in Glasgow has proved a huge success since it opened last year. Picture: The R&A | Contributed

In his time in the role, Slumbers has faced numerous unexpected challenges and none bigger than the world being hit by a global lockdown due to Covid. “I took over in September 2015 and we were on a roll right through to 2020,” he mused. “There were a lot of new kids on the block. Myself, Jay Monahan at the PGA Tour, Keith Pelley at the DP World Tour, Seth Waugh, who I’d known for 20 years with Deutsche Bank, at the PGA of America. I think things were moving really well. We were getting a grip on the amateur game and professional golf was really booming and then Covid hit us all.

“I think Keith and Jay do not get enough credit for the unbelievable job they did to get men’s professional back going again. The five or six of us were on the phone together the day after the world went into lockdown and spent hours and hours on the phone. There was an amazing collaboration to get it going, but it definitely put a brake into it.

“Particularly on the recreational side, that’s all way behind us now. In our jurisdiction, there are now 62 million people consuming golf. That’s up a million year over year, but it’s up ten million since 2018 and we have grown more since Covid than during Covid.

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“I think there’s some bad commentary around it, with people saying that the growth was all about Covid. Yeah, Covid was lucky in that sense, but we have grown it further since then and I don’t think there are many sports that have grown since Covid than during it. It took a lot of steam out of a lot of people, but I think we are back in good shape.”

Martin Slumbers can certainly walk out of that magnificent office on 13 December for the last time with his head held high!

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