R&A Chief Executive Martin Slumbers Leaving at End of 2024

The Englishman helped oversee significant rules changes and conceded last year that Saudi involvement in the pro game was inevitable.

Martin Slumbers is leaving his position at the R&A at the end of 2024.

Slumbers, the chief executive of the organization that runs the British Open as well as the rules-making body for the game outside of the United States and Mexico, will oversee this summer’s Open at Royal Troon, as well as the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews.

He is expected to step down from his position sometime late in the year, according to a news release from the R&A on Wednesday morning.

In his role, he has also been secretary of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, also based in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Martin Slumbers took over as chief executive of the R&A in 2015 / Imago

"It has been a privilege to serve golf at the highest level," Slumbers said in a statement. “It is a role that I have been proud to carry out on behalf of the R&A’s employees, the members of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club and all our global partners. In any career, there is a time to allow the next generation to have its turn. I am grateful to have had the honor, for nearly a decade, to have been the custodian of all that the R&A and the game of golf more broadly represents."

Slumbers, 63, took over for Peter Dawson in 2015 and continued a push to increase revenues via the various Open sites as a way of giving more back to the game through various R&A initiatives.

An Englishman whose background was in banking and not golf administration, Slumbers has overseen significant rules changes that were instituted (along with the United States Golf Association) in 2019 and has also been a proponent of a rollback of the golf ball, which is set to occur in 2028.

At last summer’s Open at Royal Liverpool, he also surprisingly suggested the Saudi Arabia investment in the game was inevitable, later meeting with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the country’s Public Investment Fund. That fund is what bankrolls LIV Golf.

Later in the year, Slumbers played with Al-Rumayyan in a pro-am as part of the Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews.