In an interview with Greg Hardwig of Golf Week, Mark Lye explains his termination from SiriusXM by saying “it’s really cancel culture”.
Lye, who played on both the PGA Tour and the PGA Champions Tour had been with SiriusXM since 2015. He was fired over the weekend after saying that he would rather shoot himself than watch WNBA basketball.
“You know, the LPGA Tour to me is a completely different tour than it was 10 years ago … You couldn’t pay me to watch. You really couldn’t,” he said on air. “Because I just, I couldn’t relate at all. It’s kind of like, you know, if you’re a basketball player — and I’m not trashing anybody; please, don’t take it the wrong way — but I saw some highlights of ladies’ basketball. Man, is there a gun in the house? I’ll shoot myself than watch that.”
After the segment ended, Lye claims he knew his thought came out clunky. He says he told the other people in the studio that he needed to apologize when they came back from break. His intent was to praise the LPGA Tour and not to denigrate the WNBA.
Lye was less apologetic and more defensive on Twitter.
He told Hardwig that he “thought it was case closed” after his tweet. Another Twitter user named @jalawsons posted the audio. That is what started the firestorm.
“The reason (the comments on Twitter were) blowing up is they took the most unflattering part of that sound bite and they cut it off in a spot that buttressed their point of view, which is that men hate women’s sports or Mark hates women’s sports,” Mark Lye said.
He does acknowledge that his words weren’t carefully chosen and admits that “as I look back on it, it was a hurtful thing.”
Still, he is not happy with the way his show ended. He says that he cut back from a full-time schedule to a weekend show at the end of last year because he was concerned about being able to be himself on air.
“They want us to be somewhat interesting. We’re on the air for a two-hour show. They pay me to be who I am and that’s why they hired me. I’m not the most politically correct guy in the world, but I try to make things interesting for the common golf fan.”
Mark Lye says he has received death threats over the comments. He worries about his wife and kids being confronted.