World No. 1 in contention but somber after fatality, unrelated arrest, jail visit
Written by Cameron Morfit @CMorfitPGATOUR
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After an early-morning scene that was by turns surreal, frightening and tragic, Scottie Scheffler made it to work and did his job. He played golf.
The numbers, with their attendant circles and squares, added up to a second-round 66, leaving him in contention at the PGA Championship at rain-soaked Valhalla Golf Club.
But amid the pall of the day, Scheffler was among the first to preach perspective.
“First of all, my sympathies go out to the family of Mr. Mills,” Scheffler said after reaching 9-under par, two behind Collin Morikawa (65). “I can't imagine what they're going through this morning. My situation will get handled. It was a chaotic situation and a big misunderstanding.
“I feel like my head is still spinning,” he continued. “I can't really explain what happened this morning. I did spend some time stretching in a jail cell. That was a first for me.”
Scottie Scheffler’s interview after Round 2 of PGA Championship
The narrative for Scheffler coming into the week was that he had won four of his last five tournaments, building huge leads in the Official World Golf Ranking and FedExCup. He is a new father, welcoming a son into the world with wife Meredith last week. He’s attempting to win his second straight major, becoming the first player to get halfway to the calendar-year Grand Slam since Jordan Spieth in 2015.
And yet all of that became secondary as events unfolded early Friday.
At 5 a.m. local time, a man whom the PGA of America said was “a worker with one of our vendors,” and who was later identified as John Mills, was fatally struck by a shuttle bus outside the club entrance. At around 6 a.m., with traffic at a standstill, Scheffler, trying to make his tee time, was arrested for reckless driving and disregarding the signals of an officer, whom the police report contends attached himself to Scheffler’s car and was dragged, suffering injuries.
Handcuffed, Scheffler was driven to jail and booked into a holding cell. He was issued an orange jumpsuit and watched his saga play out on a TV tuned to ESPN. He was discharged on his own recognizance and made his tee time, which had been pushed back 80 minutes due to the fatal accident and traffic backup on Shelbyville Road.
It was a feat of compartmentalization to find the composure to compete. After the round, he reiterated that it was a “chaotic situation” and “a misunderstanding” but praised the Louisville Metro Police Department and police everywhere for doing a hard, vital job.
“I was pretty rattled to say the least,” he said. “The officer that took me to the jail was very kind. He was great. We had a nice chat in the car, that kind of helped calm me down. I was sitting there waiting to kind of go in and I asked him, I was like, ‘Hey, excuse me, can you just 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.”
Among the charges against him, the most serious is felony second-degree assault of a police officer. His lawyer has said he will be exonerated, and Scheffler said in a statement before his round that he was “proceeding as directed by police officers” but amid the chaos – it was dark and raining, with cars everywhere – there was a misunderstanding.
He also said his situation was secondary in importance to the tragic death of Mills.
“It truly puts everything in perspective,” he said in the statement.
Despite everything, he had plenty of time to warm up before the round and birdied his opening hole, the par-5 10th, as well as the par-4 12th to immediately settle into the round. He birdied the par-5 18th, as well.
Scheffler made three birdies and no bogeys on the front nine, his second nine of the day, and signed for a 66 that he will no doubt remember for the rest of his life. He said he was calmed, in part, by members of his team, including his parents, who gave him a hug upon his arrival at Valhalla; his agent; and his longtime coach, Randy Smith.
Doing what he loves, Scheffler added, also helped him calm down.
“I was shaking for like an hour,” he said. “It was definitely a new feeling for me. … The officers inside the jail were tremendous. A couple of them made some jokes I think when they figured out who I was and what happened and how I ended up there. …
"I mean, they were really kind. I'm grateful that we have such strong police, and they're our protectors out there, and like I said, we just got into a chaotic situation this morning. That's really all it was.”
