The moment of the year in golf was simply Scottie Scheffler being arrested by Louisville Metro Police on the morning of May 17 before the second round of the PGA Championship.
Let’s not overthink this one – nothing else compared to the shock value of hearing that the world No. 1 had been booked, jailed and was stretching out in a Louisville cell just hours before his second-round tee time at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.
Scheffler, who had already won the Players Championship in March and the Masters in April, entered the PGA, the second major championship of the season, with four wins in his last five starts and the lone week he didn’t leave with a trophy he had missed a 5-foot putt to force a playoff and finished second. He was in the midst of a Tiger Woods-like run and it seemed the only thing that could slow him down was perhaps the birth of his first child, a son, Bennett, whose pending birth meant he skipped the CJ Cup in his hometown of Dallas and the Wells Fargo Championship, a signature event. But Bennett arrived on May 8, eight days before the PGA kicked off in Louisville. Scheffler showed no rust in the first round, shooting a solid 5-under 67 and the question of the moment remained, what, if anything, could slow him down?
That is until Louisville Det. Bryan Gillis said, “hold my beer.”
We kid but the whole reason that Gillis, the officer who attached himself to the side of Scheffler’s car that fateful morning and suffered “pain, swelling and abrasions to his left wrist” not to mention damage to his pants, was directing traffic outside the club that morning was because a man was struck and killed by a shuttle bus around 5 a.m.
Scheffler, who may have been the last pro golfer in the field you’d expect to wind up taking a mug shot in an orange jumpsuit, was simply trying to drive into the entrance of Valhalla Golf Club. Due to Gillis failing to turn on his body cam during the encounter, we’ll never know for sure whether Scheffler’s actions warranted the level of response from police. Thankfully, ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington was in the car behind Scheffler and got out of his vehicle and witnessed Scheffler be taken away in handcuffs and provided man-on-the-scene reporting. Scheffler initially faced charges of second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, and disregarding traffic from an officer directing traffic.
As Scheffler put it in the PGA Tour’s documentary “Scottie ’24,” he didn’t have getting arrested on his Bingo card for that week.
Scheffler was released at 8:40 a.m. ET Friday without bail. He arrived at Valhalla less than an hour before he was scheduled to tee off at 10:08 a.m. ET. It was hard to say what happened faster — fans sporting T-shirts with his mug shot and chanting “Free Scottie!” or Scheffler becoming a household name. There’s no debate that he never enjoyed so much support and somehow despite “freaking out” over his arrest, he still managed to shoot 66 in what his longtime instructor Randy Smith had dubbed the round of his life. Nothing proved his mental toughness more. But one day later, without regular caddie Ted Scott, who was attending his daughter’s high school graduation, on the bag, the adrenaline rush faded and the full scope of what had transpired hit him and he shot 1-over 73. Scheffler bounced back with a final-round 65 but the damage was done and he settled for T-8.
The charges against Scheffler eventually were dropped and he’d later make light of it in picking Miami to beat Louisville on ESPN’s College GameDay. But it was one of the wildest outside-the-ropes stories at a major in some time and golf fans will always wonder “what if” for Scheffler and his quest for the second major of the season had it not been derailed by his shocking arrest. Scheffler in an orange jumpsuit became a popular Halloween costume and his mug shot isn’t going away any time soon. Scheffler enjoyed arguably the greatest seasons since peak Tiger Woods in the early part of the 2000s. More so than the shots he hit to win his Green Jacket, his Olympic gold and his FedEx Cup Trophy, the most memorable moment of 2024 hands down happened outside Valhalla Golf Club when Scheffler wound up cuffed and jailed and leaving sports fans everywhere clamoring to find out what just happened.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: scottie-scheffler-arrest-pga-championship-moment-of-the-year
