Darbon reports efficiently on R&A priorities
By John Hopkins • July 15, 2026
SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND | Described officially as “The R&A Press Conference with … the Chief Executive,” this annual meeting with journalists on the Wednesday of Open Championship week is the stage on which Mark Darbon, currently the chief executive – like Martin Slumbers before him and Peter Dawson before Slumbers – can report on the activities of the R&A in the previous 12 months.
Press conference? It can sound dryer than some of the fairways at Royal Birkdale this week. But it shouldn’t be ignored. It is the R&A’s opportunity, perhaps the best of the year, to get its message on numerous issues transmitted around the world. It is by any other name a state-of-the-nation address.
Darbon, 47, is slim and owlish-looking, quietly spoken and calm. He took over this role in 2024 and is earning praise for his work. “He is doing very well,” one golf administrator said. “He is calm, balanced, well informed.” And at his press conference this year, as a sign of growing confidence, he showed flashes of a sense of humour hitherto unrevealed.
Darbon began by highlighting the financial footprint of the Open – saying that this year’s is forecast to bring an economic benefit of £200 million to the region. He mentioned the new Last-Chance Qualifier on Monday of Open week, an outstanding innovation that added considerable interest to the first day.
He mentioned the Heroes Classic “which saw our reigning [men’s and women’s] Open champions … joined by an array of other champions and personalities to compete in a three-hole scramble.”
And with some justifiable pride in his voice he unveiled Adam Scott, the 45-year-old Australian, as the first recipient of the R&A’s Spirit of Golf Award given to an individual who demonstrates the spirit of the game on a global scale and exemplifies the values, behaviours and traditions of golf. “Adam … is the ultimate professional and has consistently displayed integrity, respect and passion for the game,” Darbon said, a point of view with which, surely, there can be no disagreement.
