Former rugby and football CEO hailed for role in growing golf globally

According to new research undertaken for The R&A, there are now 42.7 million on-course golfers (9 and 18-hole) in R&A affiliated markets, which are outside the US and Mexico.

The research figures for 2023 indicate a growth of 3.1 million on-course golfers since 2022. The growth trend began before the onset of Covid-19 and is now accelerating faster than the 2020-2022 pandemic period when there was an average of 2.5 million new on-course golfers per annum.

The sport continues to increase in popularity, now up 44 per cent from 29.6 million on-course players in 2016, while the research also shows that 62.3 million adults outside the US and Mexico consume the sport in some format, an increase of 1.1 million since 2022.

Anderton, who was the chief executive of both Scottish Rugby- he was nicknamed ‘Fireworks Phil’ after he lit up the sky above Murrayfield Stadium with pyrotechnics before games - and Hearts before joining The R&A as chief development officer just over four years ago, has been leading the push by the St Andrews-based organisation to grow the game.

The Edinburgh man was behind former One Direction band member Horan being appointed as a first Global Development Officer before being joined in that role by former Tottenham and Real Madrid star Bale, as well as major champion Michelle Wie West and Hollywood actress Kathryn Newton.

“I think one of the best moves we made in my time in the job was bringing in Phil to run golf development,” Martin Slumbers told The Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday in one of his final interviews before handing over the reins as CEO to Mark Darbon. “I like to say that the way Phil has approached this is that it’s a business-driven marketing strategy to developing golf.

“You asked me a question the first time I met you and that was ‘does participation matter to you?’ Yes was my answer, but I admitted at that time there was also no silver bullet and had no idea really how to do it. But I think Phil’s determination to say ‘okay, let’s approach this like growing a business’ and the business is how do we get more people playing golf. And marketing research, adjusting and bringing in ambassadors.

“I’ll give you a great example and it’s a lesson for all of us in golf, especially where we are today. I had said that one of the biggest problems about golf growing is that everything we do, whether it us, you or TV, we are very good at talking to ourselves and, in fact, more people who either read what we say or write already play golf. How do you build a business when that is the case?

“Even the golfers with the biggest social media followings, most of those people are already playing golf. What Phil did, initially by bringing in Niall Horan and then Gareth Bale, these guys love golf and they love the history of golf but their social media followings are the multiple of any golfer and the vast majority of them don’t play golf today and that’s been the transformational way of trying to find different audiences.”

Earlier this year, The R&A, often perceived in the past to be stuffy, underlined its dedication to encouraging younger people to get involved in the game by moving into the video game world with ‘Just Swing’, a virtual golf experience on a platform called Roblox.

“We are using technology and all sorts of things to then build on that,” added Slumbers. “I didn’t want to do Roblox when it was first pitched to me. I was like ‘why are we doing this?’ And I was wrong. Again, it’s a different audience and I think now we are all talking to a bigger pie and I think that’s for the benefit of the sport.”