{"id":504897,"date":"2026-03-05T08:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504897\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:35:08","slug":"kenny-mayne-sets-the-record-straight-on-augusta-national-ban-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504897\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Mayne sets the record straight on Augusta National ban tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kenny Mayne is walking back his claim last month that he is banned from Augusta National.<\/p>\n

The former ESPN star said he believed he was barred from the iconic course<\/a> during an appearance on \u201cGod Bless Football\u201d with Jon \u201cStugotz\u201d Weiner because of on-air comments he made around 20 years ago, before the network was set to cover the Masters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayne, 66, chose to set the record straight during an interview on the \u201cAwful Announcing Podcast\u201d this week after seeing the story go viral. <\/p>\n

The legendary \u201cSportsCenter\u201d host said most of the story is true, but he does not know for sure whether he\u2019s allowed at Augusta or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NFL: ESPN sportscaster Kenny Mayne on the sidelines before an NFL game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks on October 3, 2019, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s funny, that\u2019s a real story and a fake story at the same time, which that\u2019s kind of true with everything, I think,\u201d said Mayne, who used to cover golf for the Worldwide Leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He confirmed that after jokingly saying on air he would show up at the course with some \u201csaucy\u201d women for a round, someone from Augusta did call the ESPN production truck about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Augusta is famous for exercising an extreme level of control over its brand and the verbiage used during the Masters broadcast, but the people in the truck had Mayne\u2019s back and tried to explain that the comment was just part of his usual schtick.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really did get upset,\u201d Mayne said. \u201cThey really did call ESPN. They called the truck while we\u2019re still on the air. And my boss is like, \u2018No, no, no, he just does jokes. He\u2019s not really gonna do that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The details and truth around the aftermath are where things get a little fuzzy. Mayne said he was not already invited to the Masters at the time since he was covering horse racing, but chose to tell the story like he was banned for life from the course because it was funnier. <\/p>\n

He believed the tone and context of what he told Stugotz last month wasn\u2019t taken into consideration, and soon the story was all over several national media outlets.<\/p>\n

\"ATiger Woods of the United States plays his shot from the third tee during a practice round prior to the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on April 04, 2022 in Augusta, Georgia. Getty Images<\/p>\n

His bosses at his current podcast, \u201cWe Need a Fourth\u201d for SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, want him to leave the story as is.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like, \u2018keep it going.\u2019 They didn\u2019t give a damn about the truth of it.\u201d Mayne said. \u201cThey just liked that my name was out there and people might hear about our show.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was, however, invited by former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker to play in his golf tournament at Augusta the day after the Masters this year. He\u2019s unsure if Augusta would want to set the record straight in any way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may have a better sense of humor than we think,\u201d Mayne said.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe it was just one guy who called [the truck].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenny Mayne is walking back his claim last month that he is banned from Augusta National. The former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[134878,352,427,99,1625,3015],"class_list":["post-504897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-augusta-national","tag-espn","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment","tag-sports-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}