{"id":481342,"date":"2026-02-17T19:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481342\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T19:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:38:08","slug":"former-espn-anchor-says-hes-been-banned-from-augusta-national-golf-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481342\/","title":{"rendered":"Former ESPN Anchor Says He\u2019s Been Banned From Augusta National Golf Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">Kenny Mayne doesn\u2019t expect to return to Augusta National Golf Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">The former ESPN anchor, who was once part of the network\u2019s Masters coverage, said on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fx_nhk4Rn30\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">God Bless Football<\/a> podcast that he has been barred from the hallowed grounds after an edgy comment he made while promoting the year\u2019s first major championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">\u201cI\u2019m banned for life from Augusta, I think,\u201d Mayne said. \u201cI used to cover golf, I used to do the TPC Sawgrass [the Players Championship], and I did the U.S. Open every year for, I don\u2019t know, seven or eight years. It was me, [Scott] Van Pelt, Andy North, the whole gang.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">\u201cAt TPC one year, I just made some smartass comment about, \u2018We\u2019ll see you at the Masters, where we bring four saucy ladies out to play!\u2019 Or, you know, just something stupid, right? But mentioning that I\u2019m bringing women to play golf. And [Augusta National] called into the ESPN truck, like we\u2019re still on the air, and the people in Augusta are literally, they somehow have the inside number to the truck. And they were like, \u2018He is not coming!\u2019 So I was never invited to go by my lords.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\">This isn\u2019t unprecedented. In 1966, Jack Whitaker of CBS Sports was banned from the Masters when he said \u201chere comes the mob\u201d while referencing the patrons at the 18th hole in a playoff. However, he returned to the broadcast five years later.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"74\">In 1994, CBS Sports broadcaster Gary McCord <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/golf\/news\/gary-mccord-bikini-wax-comment-masters-cbs-broadcast-ban-peter-kostis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was removed<\/a> from the Masters\u2019 telecast team after saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think they mow these greens, I think they bikini wax them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"77\">ESPN has broadcast the Masters every year since 2008. The network handles the first two rounds and early weekend coverage before the telecast shifts to CBS on the final two days.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7a\">Augusta National is known to be attentive with phrasing in its tournament coverage. For example, on air, fans are referred to as \u201cpatrons\u201d and the back nine is called the \u201csecond nine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenny Mayne doesn\u2019t expect to return to Augusta National Golf Club.\u00a0 The former ESPN anchor, who was once&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-481342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}