{"id":554694,"date":"2026-03-21T09:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554694\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:54:08","slug":"skys-ewen-murray-to-quit-golf-commentary-after-ryder-cup-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554694\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky\u2019s Ewen Murray to quit golf commentary after Ryder Cup abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The veteran Sky Sports<\/a> golf commentator Ewen Murray says he has made the decision to hang up his microphone after witnessing the \u201cdisgraceful\u201d abuse suffered by Rory McIlroy<\/a> at last year\u2019s Ryder Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Murray, 71, has been the voice of golf on Sky Sports for 35 years, following his own playing career, and had not renewed his contract with the broadcaster – but he told the Sliced Podcast <\/a>that the ugly scenes at Bethpage Black prompted him to bring forward his retirement.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

McIlroy received an apology from the PGA of America<\/a> after he and his wide Erica were the target of abuse during Europe\u2019s Ryder Cup victory in September. A hostile atmosphere spilled over, with an MC forced to step down from her role <\/a>after leading a chant of \u201cF*** you, Rory!\u201d and McIlroy\u2019s wife Erica being struck by a can of beer thrown from the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard stuff in that half-hour that I can\u2019t repeat to you, it\u2019s that bad,\u201d Murray told the Sliced Podcast. \u201cNot fired at Rory but at Rory\u2019s family. I walked back and I thought, \u2018Do you really need to be part of this any more?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s when I decided to finish commentary. By the time I got on the plane on the Monday, I looked out over New York and thought it\u2019s been a fantastic journey, but if that\u2019s our future I really don\u2019t want any part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Murray will still appear at next month\u2019s Masters and will continue his role through to July\u2019s Open and the Senior Open at Gleneagles. After the Ryder Cup, Murray said he felt his \u201ctime is probably up\u201d but was persuaded to stay on for The Players and golf\u2019s major championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel that after the Ryder Cup I lost a little bit of respect for the game. I was so disgusted at the stuff I heard,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll never repeat it because it\u2019s that bad. I just thought, \u2018you\u2019re 71 years of age, you\u2019ve had a great kick of the ball\u2019, as they say in Scotland. Now is maybe the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be doing the Masters. I will do The Open and I may finish at the Seniors because my mother met my father at Gleneagles. My father was an assistant pro and my mother worked in the hotel. So I may finish there.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see. As long as I\u2019m still okay upstairs and still happy to do the preparation, the homework, the research. If I\u2019m still able and happy to do that I may continue, but that\u2019s the plan at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The veteran Sky Sports golf commentator Ewen Murray says he has made the decision to hang up his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,274050,755,274052,756,14605,2643,274051,85],"class_list":["post-554694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ewen-murray","tag-golf","tag-golf-commentator","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-ryder-cup","tag-sky-sports","tag-sliced-podcast","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}