Martin Slumbers hangs his hat on making British Open big and promoting women’s golf

Martin Slumbers could not have witnessed greater theater than his first British Open in charge of the R&A, the record-setting duel between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson at Royal Troon.

His only concern in 2016 was the audience.

“I walked around quite a bit and it felt sort of empty,” Slumbers, 64, said in a telephone interview this week as he winds down nearly a decade as CEO. “You know, it’s a big place. It could definitely accommodate a lot more.”

The attendance on the Ayrshire links in Scotland was about 173,000.

The final Open for Slumbers, who retires at the end of the year, also was at Royal Troon this summer when Xander Schauffele battled through rain and wind on Saturday and emerged with his second major of the year. The attendance for the week was 258,000.

That delivered what Slumbers wanted when he arrived at the R&A after a career in banking, the first R&A chief with a background in business. He brought more commercialization to golf’s oldest championship, an emphasis on building the brand and investing in the game.

His motto: “Big-time sport needs a big-time crowd.”

“Yes, there are some people who would like to have ticket prices three times the size and half the number of people so they can stand right by the 18th green,” Slumbers said. “But the vast majority of people really like it. The energy it creates, the noise it creates, and the players really like that.”

Slumbers also expanded the R&A’s role in other championships, most merging with the Ladies Golf Union to add women to its portfolio of some 40 championships. That included running the Women’s British Open with a title sponsor in AIG that allowed the prize money to go from $3 million in 2016 to $9.5 million this year.

The women went to links courses that host the men. That included Muirfield, which for nearly three centuries was a male-only club. Slumbers was eight months into his role at the R&A when in 2016 he removed Muirfield from the Open rotation, saying it would not be held at a club that did not have females.

Muirfield, which first hosted the Open in 1892, took another vote a year later and admitted women. It held its first Women’s British Open in 2022.

Slumbers was under consideration as CEO when the R&A was deciding to have female members and said he wouldn’t have taken the job if members had not voted for that.

“We only represented men and boys’ golf,” he said. “I’ve always had in my mind that this role needed to be about promoting more women and girls into the game. And the LGU, it became fortunate that they needed help, the ability to help them merge into the R&A.”

Slumbers calls that development “one of the cornerstones of my entire tenure.”

He also was bullish on investing in the game, committing 200 million pounds (about $250 million) in the amateur game over a 10-year period. All the while, he protested rising purses in the men’s game, particularly as the sport was divided when Saudi money was behind the upstart LIV Golf League and the PGA Tour tried to keep pace.

Slumbers leaves with the game still split, chagrined that the world’s best only come together four times a year at the majors.

“We have to focus on getting some stability,” Slumbers said. “We have to focus on financial sustainability, as well, of golf. That’s damaging our sport. And most importantly, if we’re going to really reverse the decline in interest, we have to stop talking about money and start talking about values in golf.

“This whole money-led dialogue is extremely damaging, in my opinion, to both the perception and the reputation of our sport, and is at the heart of why a lot of people aren’t watching golf.”

Slumbers had no immediate plans after he leaves. Then again, he tried retiring a decade ago and wanted to do nothing but play golf until he says he became bored. That’s when he was recruited to be CEO of the R&A. And now?

“I’m going to play some golf,” he said with a laugh.

Slumbers started the same year Keith Pelley took over as chief executive of the European tour. Jay Monahan became PGA Tour commissioner and Fred Ridley became Augusta National’s chairman in 2017, and Seth Waugh — with whom Slumbers worked at Deutsche Bank — became CEO of the PGA of America in 2018.

Ridley and Monahan remain of those five leaders.

Slumbers will be followed by Mark Darbon, the former CEO of Northampton Saints, a Premiership Rugby club.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf