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Last week, the golf world was whipped into a frenzy when Scottie Scheffler was arrested outside the PGA Championship hours before he was slated to tee off, and we now have some footage of the incident that sparked one of the wildest sports stories in recent memory.
I sincerely doubt I’m the only person who woke up last Friday and wondered if I was still dreaming after coming across a video of Scottie Scheffler being placed into the back of a police car in handcuffs in the wake of the wild scene that unfolded while he was attempting to enter Valhalla Golf Club for the second round of the PGA Championship in Louisville.
The top-ranked golfer on the planet found himself thrust into a surreal nightmare courtesy of Detective Bryan Gillis. the Louisville Metro Police Department member who reportedly jumped on Scheffler’s car due to what has been widely painted as a misunderstanding that led to the latter being taken to jail and the former seeking a replacement for an $80 pair of pants that were “damaged beyond repair.”
As things currently stand, Scheffler is slated to head back to Louisville on June 3rd for an arraignment hearing in a case where the charges are almost certainly going to be dropped. The LMPD is also investigating the incident for potential policy violations, the most notable of which appears to be the lack of body camera footage that could have provided a much clearer picture of what actually transpired.
Jeff Darlington’s video of Scheffler being taken away from the scene was initially the only relevant footage the public was able to view when the golfer’s arrest became the biggest story of the PGA Championship. It was initially reported the LMPD had obtained surveillance footage that showed what transpired before he was cuffed, but it doesn’t appear that’s the case based on the videos they released in conjunction with a press conference that was held on Thursday.
The videos in question were captured from a camera located on a pole near the scene as well as a dashcam inside a police car (that clip is around 55 minutes long and offers an alternate angle of Scheffler being taken away around the 23:10 mark).
Unfortunately, they only show the aftermath of the incident, as officials said they still have not found any footage of Scheffler’s initial encounter with Detective Gillis (the video captured from the pole shows him pulling Scheffler out of the car near the 30-second mark, but the initial contact is blocked by a bus).
A spokesperson added Gillis should have activated his body camera and violated LMPD policy by not doing so. The department has responded with “corrective action” that appears to amount to listing the violation on the police equivalent of a permanent record, but it sounds like he could potentially face additional discipline.