Outgoing R&A chief govt Martin Slumbers believes the present divisive state of affairs inside the males’s recreation is doing “terrible damage” to the repute of the game.
Slumbers – who has been chief govt of the R&A since 2015 – is to get replaced by Mark Darbon, who’s leaving his function as CEO of Premiership rugby facet Northampton Saints.
He leaves the function at a contentious time inside the {golfing} world because the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saud Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF) are nonetheless negotiating a resolution to the shock “framework agreement” introduced in June 2023.
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PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan mentioned in August that they proceed to barter with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund
Slumbers admits he’s involved concerning the present ‘civil conflict’ and fractured divide inside golf, with the 64-year-old hoping there will likely be a peace deal to unify the boys’s recreation.
“I think the divisive position that we’ve got in the game, the constant talk about money, the ever-increasing prize money, the financial unsustainability of the game, I think has done terrible damage to the reputation and perception of the sport that I love,” Slumbers advised Sky Sports activities Information.
“I truly hope that we’re getting to a point where there will be peace and there’ll be more stability.”
Slumbers: No unfinished enterprise
Slumbers highlights a favorite second of his R&A profession being with Shane Lowry on the Saturday evening of The Open at Portrush, the place the Irishman was celebrating holding a four-shot lead in entrance of packed crowds earlier than going to safe a maiden main title the subsequent day.
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Highlights from Shane Lowry’s 4 rounds at The Open in 2019, the place he claimed a six-shot victory at Royal Portrush.
“It just doesn’t get better than that,” Slumbers mentioned. “I don’t know how many thousands of people were there around that green, but it was an amazing experience.”
Slumbers is happy with his legacy main the governing physique and the organisation, which runs The Open and AIG Ladies’s Open, and believes he has left the sport in a state the place it has grow to be a “much bigger recreational sport”.
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Highlights of the ultimate spherical at St Andrews for the AIG Ladies’s Open, the place Lydia Ko impressed.
He states that he has given the function every thing he may since taking on from Peter Dawson in 2015 and following his efforts to “modernise the game but being reflective of history”.
“I don’t walk away with any unfinished business,” Slumbers added. “I felt that I came into the job, I knew what I wanted to do. I’ve given it everything I had to be able to do it.
“The expansion of The Open, the scale of The Open, I at all times wished it to be seen as one of many world’s best sporting occasions. That is definitely what we have delivered over the past the final 10 years.”
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