Scottie Scheffler is having one of the most unusual weekends in sports history at the PGA Championship in Kentucky. It came full-circle with a “surreal” interaction prior to the final round of the tournament on Sunday morning.
The 27-year-old professional golfer (and alleged felon) shared an unusual moment with the Louisville Metro Police Department while speaking with Jeff Darlington, the only person to film his arrest on Friday.
Scheffler, who is currently ranked No. 1 in the world, was booked and charged with 2nd degree assault of a police officer (a felony), 3rd degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic. LMPD officers took him down to the station, which forced him to begin his pre-round warm-up routine while wearing an orange jumpsuit in a jail cell.
If that wasn’t weird enough, Scheffler was greeted by t-shirts with his mugshot on them upon arrival to Valhalla Golf Club for the second round on Friday after being released on bail. He played extremely well.
The same cannot be said for Saturday. Scheffler admitted that his head was still spinning after posting a two-over par during the third round.
I was definitely not feeling like myself today, for sure. Yesterday happened, and I did my best to recover from it, and come out here and compete today. I did a great job yesterday of coming out and competing, riding the adrenaline.
This morning was definitely not my usual routine for a round, if that makes sense. … I wasn’t able to get it done, which is pretty frustrating, but I’ll come back and try again tomorrow.
— Scottie Scheffler
To make the entire weekend even more strange, his caddie was not with him on Saturday while attending his daughter’s high school graduation. The PGA Tour’s chaplain is a good friend of Scheffler’s and was on the bag instead.
And then Sunday morning rolled around.
Scottie Scheffler’s weekend came full-circle.
Darlington, an esteemed reporter for ESPN, captured the only public video (so far) of Scheffler’s arrest. The latter can be heard pleading with the former for help.
Darlington and Scheffler had a moment to chat for the first time since that moment on Sunday morning. The conversation quickly took an unexpected turn.
According to Darlington, in that moment, “no fewer than 12” members of the Louisville Metro Police Department “very coincidentally” walked past. He called it “strange and surreal.”
Darlington and Scheffler both looked up. Each one of the 12 police officers gave the world’s No. 1 golfer a fist bump and said hello.
Scheffler looked up at all of them with a smile and asked, “where is everybody going?”
Darlington described it as a “very interesting sight” that served as an “interesting book end” to a strange week at Valhalla Golf Club. Scott Van Pelt loved how the latter half of that sentence was phrased.
It was indeed an interesting book end. Scottie Scheffler’s bizarre weekend came full-circle.