LOUISVILLE — On a Friday at a golf major that turned both tragic and bizarre, a retired police officer working as a security guard died before dawn when he was struck by a shuttle bus near Valhalla Golf Club, the site of the 106th PGA Championship. Hours later, Scottie Scheffler, the dominant top-ranked golfer known for his tranquil manner and dependable decency, ended up handcuffed, arrested and briefly jailed after a traffic infraction he later called “a big misunderstanding.”
Scheffler eventually reached the course 56 minutes ahead of his 10:08 a.m. tee time and then, playing before jampacked galleries with boomlets of noise owing more than somewhat to his plight, shot a compartmentalized 66 to storm into contention. At 9 under par for the tournament, the reigning Masters champion trails second-round leader Xander Schauffele (12 under) and Collin Morikawa (11 under) as Scheffler seeks to become only the fifth golfer since 1950 to claim the first two majors of a given year.
He then spoke at just past 3:30 p.m., beginning as follows: “First of all, my sympathies go out to the family of Mr. [John] Mills,” he said of the 69-year-old security officer. “I can’t imagine what they’re going through this morning. One day he’s heading to the golf course to watch a tournament. A few moments later he’s trying to cross the street, and now he’s no longer with us. I can’t imagine what they’re going through. My heart — I feel for them. I’m sorry.”
He then answered questions about his day if not about the case itself, describing his shock, fear, confusion and trembles after he drove toward the course and, according to the police report, failed to obey traffic instructions that had sharpened in the aftermath of the accident.
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“I feel like my head is still spinning,” the Texan said, later noting that he “did spend some time stretching in a jail cell,” which he called “a first for me.”
“Tried to get my heart rate down as much as I could,” he said, while repeatedly thanking police in general as “our protectors out there.”
Police already had responded to the tragedy by 6:16 a.m., when the PGA of America released a statement announcing a delayed start owing to “a serious accident near the course.” Darkness and rain persisted as Scheffler neared the one entry to the gigantic course. Another player, Austin Eckroat, said he had to exit his courtesy car, walk the last mile and a half and let his wife finish the driving.
Scheffler’s arrest had a witness in arriving ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington, who got out of a vehicle and wound up fielding two requests: Scheffler asking him for help and, later, officers asking him for Scheffler’s name. “Right now, he’s going to jail,” Darlington said an officer told him at one point, with the list of charges underway: second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, disregarding signals from officers directing traffic.
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“Detective [Bryan] Gillis,” the police report read, “was directing traffic into Gate 1 of the Valhalla Golf Course due to the road being closed in both directions from an earlier fatal collision. Listed subject was driving eastbound to gate access to the course. Subject pulled into the westbound lanes, where outbound traffic was flowing and to avoid backed-up traffic. Detective Gillis was in the middle of the westbound lanes, in full LMPD uniform and a hi-visibility yellow reflective rain jacket. Detective Gillis stopped subject and attempted to give instructions. Subject refused to comply and accelerated forward, dragging Detective Gillis to the ground. Detective Gillis suffered pain, swelling and abrasions to his left wrist and knee. He was transported to the hospital for further medical treatment by emergency medical personnel.”
The booking of Scheffler happened at 7:28 a.m. A police photo materialized and circulated of this mild-mannered 27-year-old man sometimes impugned as dull but now wearing an orange jumpsuit. He wore a blank expression. As fellow player Harris English put it, “Turn on ESPN and seeing Scottie in handcuffs, getting in a police car, I never would have thought I would have seen that this morning.”
“It was chaotic. It was dark. It was raining. There’s lots of stuff going on,” Scheffler said by afternoon, soon adding, “I didn’t know what happened at the time other than that there was an accident. I don’t know that it was fatal.”
He said he tried defusing matters and made “numerous apologies and whatever,” then spiraled into disbelief and became “pretty rattled to say the least.” He got a boost from the officer driving him to the jail, whom he described as “very kind.”
“We had a nice chat in the car; that kind of helped calm me down,” Scheffler said. “I was sitting there waiting to kind of go in and I asked him, I was like, ‘Hey, excuse me, can you come hang out with me for a few minutes so I can calm down?’ I was never angry. I was just in shock, and I think my body was just — I was shaking the whole time. I was shaking for like an hour. It was definitely a new feeling for me.”
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One older officer, he said, “looked at me as I was doing my fingerprints or whatever, and he looks at me and he goes, ‘So do you want the full experience today?’ I kind of looked at him, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how to answer that.’ He’s like, ‘Come on, man, you want a sandwich?’ I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll take a sandwich.’ I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.”
Without his phone or a watch, he gauged the hour only through a jailhouse glimpse at ESPN, on which he saw, of course, himself. He thought he might miss his tee time, but then an officer knocked on the window of the cell. He wound up reaching the course at 9:12 a.m. and spent 20 minutes on the driving range.
Soon, Scheffler began on hole No. 10 in a trio that featured the past three major champions: 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, 2023 British Open champion Brian Harman and Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion. The air felt hushed. Rain still fell but politely.
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Clark and Harman began to courteous applause, but when the tee announcer said, “And next to play, from Texas, Scottie Scheffler,” the cheers swelled. There began a Scheffler round of a tenor departed from the norm. Right off the bat, a spectator yelled: “Scottie! I need your lawyer’s number!” That lawyer, Steven Romines, is a well-known figure around Louisville whose clients have included the boyfriend of police shooting victim Breonna Taylor.
While the winner of two Masters, two Players Championships and four of his past five PGA Tour events has seen his share of crowds, this crowd resembled more the galleries long since surrounding Tiger Woods. The course filled with impasses. People strategized for viewing points and spoke of wishing to climb trees.
But then, a distinctive chant, “Free Scottie!” became almost routine. Beside the No. 17 fairway, three spectators wore Scheffler-relevant attire, two in white “Free Scottie” T-shirts and one in an orange jumpsuit he said he had corralled Friday morning at a party store. A man next to them, John Glenwood of Louisville, said: “We’re all here enjoying ourselves, having some nice refreshments. We’re about to see Scottie Scheffler walk up into the fairway. We’re standing here. We’re looking to have a little bit of an interaction with him. We’re here supporting Scottie. We are not here to do anything else. We are here to support him and everything. He is probably the most humble man on Tour, that I think the Tour has seen in a long time, and he has incredible morals.”
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Scheffler said it “probably took a few holes to feel normal” and he found it “kind of nice to be out there inside the ropes competing” after such a drastic disruption of routine for a routine-based creature. By No. 12, his 27-foot birdie putt dropped and drew a roar that sounded louder and more guttural than even most 27-foot birdie putts would coax. “I felt like they were cheering extra loud for me today,” he said. “I really do — I know sometimes you can’t really see it on my face, but I really do enjoy playing in front of the fans.”
He said he would spend the rest of the week trying to “do my best to continue to calm down from this morning.” He said: “My situation will get handled. It was a chaotic situation and a big misunderstanding.” And he said, “I definitely never imagined going to jail, and I definitely never imagined going to jail the morning before one of my tee times for sure.”
Maese and Allen reported from Washington. This story has been updated.
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