Fan ejected for taunting Max Homa about bet during BMW Championship

Getting kicked out of a professional sporting event is never ideal, but doing so while trying to taunt an athlete about a bet you placed on them is just next-level embarrassing.

PGA Tour president Tyler Dennis confirmed to ESPN this week that a fan had been ejected from this past weekend’s BMW Championship for yelling something at golfer Max Homa on Saturday about a sports bet while the latter was putting on the green.

Homa detailed what went down with the unruly spectator, who tried messing with him verbally as he putt on the tournament’s 17th hole at Olympia Fields. Apparently, it had to do with something as trivial as a $3 bet on Homa’s putt.

“There was a probably drunk — I hope, for his case, or else he’s just he biggest loser there is — but he was cheering and yelling at Chris [Kirk] for missing his putt short,” Homa said after the incident. “And he kept yelling — one of them had $3 for me to make mine — and I got to the back of my back stroke and he yelled, ‘Pull it!’ pretty loud.

“I made it right in the middle, and then I just started yelling at him.”

Jon Rahm noted it’s been pretty common to hear taunts from the gallery over betting while they’re actively participating on the links.

“That happens way more often than you guys may hear,” Rahm told reporters Tuesday at East Lake Golf Club. “I mean, it’s very, very present. In golf, spectators are very close, and even if they’re not directly talking to you, they’re close enough to where if they say to their buddy, ‘I bet you 10 bucks he’s going to miss it,’ you hear it.”

It doesn’t appear that new security measures will be put in place by the PGA Tour, though the group says it’s being vigilant about policing these incidents. PGA Tour executive vice president Laura Neal told ESPN on Monday that they have seen “nothing outside the ordinary since gaming has become legal” regarding unruly fans.

Some of this may just come down to spectator etiquette and not being a jerk who yells at someone while they’re golfing about your sports betting.

While the PGA Tour can definitely take more measures to give golfers some distance from rude fans, the Golden Rule may be the best deterrent.