Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Martin Slumbers clearly doesn’t get much sleep. Appointed as the new chief executive of the R & A (derived from the Royal and Ancient in 2004), Slumbers moves fast … and he wants golfers around the world to do the same!
The R&A organises The Open, golf’s oldest major, along with a number of other amateur and junior events, some of which are sanctioned by other golfing bodies.
In addition, the R&A assumes responsibility for the administration of the Rules of Golf with the consent of 152 organisations from the amateur and professional game, and on behalf of over 30 million golfers in 138 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
The announcement was made following the results being published of a survey that covered 122 countries and received 56,000 responses, resulting in the publishing of new rules for the first time in 20 years.
Remarkably, these now link the rules to golf etiquette and recommend clubs to ban players for breaches.
The main focus is the pace of play with the majority of golfers surveyed unhappy with how long it takes to play the game, with the CEO commenting that it should take a group of four players between 3-3.5 hours to complete a round when walking the course.
Problems have stemmed from players taking too much time to look for lost balls and the increasing duration of pre-shot rituals and analysis of greens when putting. This was described as selfish and a form of cheating.
It was revealed that 24 players have been penalised shots on the European Tour throughout its history, including Seve Ballesteros, although none have fallen foul of the timekeeper in the last two years.
The result now will be lost shots – hitting golfers where it hurts. There will also be a review that considers other options to speed up the game that will include:
Which of these would you like to see?
