{"id":1254701,"date":"2024-11-28T15:57:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T15:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/?p=1254701"},"modified":"2024-11-28T15:57:28","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T15:57:28","slug":"the-numbers-game-randa-martin-slumbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/the-numbers-game-randa-martin-slumbers\/","title":{"rendered":"The numbers game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The outgoing chief executive of the R&A, Martin Slumbers, has lately being doing a round of interviews to acknowledge the end of his reign. Among the things that struck me were some of the numbers.<\/p>\n

In an interview with John Huggan for Golf Digest<\/i>, he spoke about attending his first Open Championship, at Royal Troon in 2016. \u201cThere were 170,000 people there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big course and it felt empty. This year we had 250,000 and it certainly did not feel empty.\u201d By developing the championship and doing more to promote the Open, the R&A has doubled the money it can invest in the game, up to \u00a3200 million from \u00a3100 million. The number of golfers under the R&A\u2019s worldwide jurisdiction stands at 62.3 million \u2013 \u201ca million higher than it was a year ago,\u201d said Slumbers. A large part of this is down to the accelerated emphasis in getting more women and girls into playing golf. According to R&A statistics, in 2022 there were 5.6 million golfers who had played a full-length course in Great Britain & Ireland, up from 5.3 million in 2021.<\/p>\n

As one would expect, he does not view the game through hopelessly rose-tinted spectacles. Having paid tribute to the way the game flourished despite (because of?) Covid in 2020 and 2021, Slumbers regrets the fact that the game then caught LIV. \u201cIn 2022, this divisiveness emerged,\u201d he told James Corrigan of the Daily Telegraph<\/i>. \u201cIt just put a big brake on the game \u2013 the pro game, that is. Because after seeing membership and participation falling every year from 2006 to 2018, the recreational game is now booming. To me, the biggest danger for the pro game is that de-linking.\u201d He sees the possibility of the Americans being paid to playing the next Ryder Cup<\/a> as part of the same problem. \u201cSome viewing figures are up but a lot of them are down and I think that has a lot to do with that whole concept of constantly talking about money. Unfortunately, the male professional game has become de-linked from the fan.\u201d<\/p>\n