Butch Harmon was supposed to be involved in the TV coverage of the 2025 Ryder Cup, but he changed his mind during the course of the event.
Given it's the most exciting team golf event in the world, you'd think legends of the game would be queuing up to be involved in any way possible.
The 2025 tournament saw a devastating defeat for Team USA at Bethpage Black with Europe and Luke Donald retaining the trophy on foreign soil.
However, the behaviour of American fans during the event overshadowed the more positive side of proceedings.
Rory McIlroy and his wife were targeted with offensive chants. Meanwhile, rowdy supporters failed to adhere to traditional golf spectatorship rules, including booing the European players and making noises at inappropriate times. There was even one instance of a drink being thrown at Erica McIlroy from the crowd.
It led to many criticizing the antics of the American fans, with Gary Player saying he was "disgusted" by what he saw at Bethpage.
Now, Butch Harmon has spoken out to condemn what happened in New York, and revealed it even stopped him joining the Sky Sports commentary team despite initial plans to be involved.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Harmon said: "I thought the Ryder Cup was disgusting. It was embarrassing being an American. I love the Ryder Cup, it’s my favorite one to broadcast and being from New York, I had planned to work with the Sky [Sports] team.
"But I decided to pull out for that main reason. I felt we would spend more time talking about what’s going on in the gallery with the fans being unruly than we would the golf and I just didn’t feel I wanted to be part of it."
For Harmon, the Ryder Cup doesn't come close to The Masters in terms of atmosphere. Looking ahead to the latest edition of the prestigious Major, Harmon was full of praise for how things operate at Augusta National.
"This is the beauty of Augusta. These are the best behaved patrons in all of golf," he said.
"I love the Open Championship because all the gallery people understand golf and they understand how to cheer. But this place, it’s like a holy grail of golf in the US, and it’s difficult to get a ticket to come. It’s probably the hardest event to get a ticket to."
Harmon added: "The patrons there are very well behaved, because they’re the same people that come back year after year. I hated the way things were going at the Ryder Cup. I thought it was a terrible embarrassment for the United States, and let’s hope it never happens again."
Interestingly, Harmon will be at Augusta this week working with Sky Sports to cover The Masters. Whether he will be involved with the Ryder Cup next year, or upon its return to the States in 2029, is another matter.
