British Open 2024: R&A chief executive calls for ‘integrity, accountability and respect’ as divide in golf remains wide

Golf is on an unsustainable financial trajectory. Anyone involved in the sport at the highest level knows this indisputable fact, and yet few are prepared to face it as directly as R&A CEO Martin Slumbers. The outgoing head of Europe’s golf regulator, Slumbers used this week’s Open Championship as an opportunity to express his extreme concerns about the direction of the sport in 2024.

“I have expressed concern over the years about the financial sustainability of the men’s professional game,” Slumbers said Wednesday. “If we look at the game from a broader perspective, golf is in many ways riding on the wave. The golf industry is benefiting from increased participation and more people are experiencing golf in all its forms.”

Slumbers noted that more than 100 million people play golf worldwide and that participation in the areas governed by the R&A continues to increase year on year.

“These are very encouraging numbers, but we have to maintain this momentum,” Slumbers said. “To do that, we have to have a sustainable business model for the long term. If you look at golf as a pyramid, no matter how strong the pyramid is at the top, it can only be sustained long term if the pyramid is equally strong at the bottom.”

The main problem, Slumbers said, is the ever-rising cost of professional tournaments. This year’s Open offers a $17 million prize pool, including $3 million for the winner — an impressive sum by any standard, but in golf’s current overextended financial environment, literally dozens of tournaments offer more money.

“While we will always offer highly competitive prize money for the Open, our broader focus is on increasing participation and improving pathways in golf,” Slumbers added. “We have to make choices about how we allocate resources and make the resources we have go as far as possible. It takes financial resources to do these kinds of projects and we have to find ways to do them more often if we are to accelerate and sustain the upward trend in golf’s participation curve.”

And all of this, Slumbers indicated, must include a reaffirmation of what he considers golf’s core principles. “Perhaps the most important part of golf’s future success is staying true to its values,” he said. “What sets golf apart from other sports is its ability to maintain a unique set of values. It is a set of values ​​that is defined by integrity, personal responsibility and respect. These are precisely the values ​​that sponsors want their products or services to be associated with and that are fundamental to golf’s appeal. These values ​​are golf’s secret weapon and we cannot afford to see them diminished.”

Another big season has passed without a resolution to the split in men’s professional golf between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s Saudi financial backers. While LIV has been looking for a path to the majors for years, Slumbers indicated that there was no plan to bring LIV players directly to the Open Championship.

“We decided after last year’s event that we wanted to make sure that there were enough opportunities for all players, regardless of the tour they’re on, to get into the Open,” he said. “We used our Open qualifying series. We picked events that were open to all players. We used the Asian Tour and we used the final qualifying to create those opportunities. I think we have 18 players from LIV in the field, and I think we have all the best players in the world. And that’s what we want to have, all the best players in the world coming through. So I think we’ve created those opportunities.”

Translation: LIV players must play their way in, not count on exemptions. The Masters and PGA Championship offered exemptions to certain LIV players; the US Open did not.

The Open Championship in Troon starts on Thursday morning and lasts all weekend. Brian Harman is the reigning champion.