Scottie Scheffler Stretched in His Jail Cell to Warm Up for PGA Championship After Shock Arrest
Scheffler was charged with felony second-degree assault of a police officer.
May 17 2024, Published 5:14 p.m. ET
Scottie Scheffler, the world's number one golfer, has opened up about his shocking arrest outside the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday morning, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The 27-year-old Masters champion was charged with felony second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic after mistakenly attempting to drive around cops who were on the scene following a fatal bus accident that had killed a pedestrian, John Mills, earlier that morning.
Scottie Scheffler, the world's no. 1 golfer, was arrested outside Valhalla Golf Club.
According to the police report, LMPD Detective Bryan Gillis instructed Scheffler to stop but he "refused to comply and accelerated forward, dragging Detective Gillis to the ground." Gillis was hospitalized after reportedly suffering "pain, swelling, and abrasions to his left wrist and knee."
After returning to the course for the second round of the PGA Championship, during which he made six birdies and tied for third place on the tournament's leaderboard, Scheffler addressed the incident in a press conference, revealing that he was forced to do his warm-up routine in jail.
"First of all, my sympathies go out to the family of Mr. Mills. I can't imagine what they're going through this morning," Scheffler began. "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. I feel for them. I'm sorry. My situation will get handled. It was just a chaotic situation and a big misunderstanding. I can't comment on any of the specifics of it."
"I feel like my head's still spinning. I can't really explain what happened this morning," he continued. "I did spend some time stretching in a jail cell, that was a first for me. I was just sitting there waiting. I started going through my warm-up. I felt like there was a chance I may be able to still come out here and play and so I started going through my routine. I tried to get my heart rate down as much as I could today but like I said, I still feel like my head is spinning a little bit. But I was fortunate enough to be able to make it back out and play some golf today."
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A detective was hospitalized and his uniform was allegedly "damaged beyond repair” after he was dragged along by golfer Scottie Scheffler’s car.
"I came here for a golf tournament," Scheffler added. "I was driving in this morning trying to get to my warm-up time and get ready for the round of golf. I didn't really have an understanding of what had transpired this morning. My main focus after getting arrested was wondering if I could be able to come back out here and play, and fortunately, I was able to do that. It was nice to put together a solid round today for sure."
Although Scheffler said he was "pretty rattled, to say the least," he had nothing but kind things to say about the police officers he interacted with. "The officer that took me to the jail was very kind. He was great," he explained. "We had a nice chat in the car that kind of helped calmed me down. I was sitting there waiting to go in and I asked him, 'Excuse me, can you just come hang out with me for a few minutes so I can calm down?'"
Scheffler broke his silence on the shocking incident in a lengthy social media post published shortly after he was released from the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections.
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"I was never angry, I was just in shock," Scheffler said. "I was shaking the whole time. I was shaking for like an hour. It was definitely a new feeling for me. And he came out, we had a nice chat. And then the officers inside the jail were tremendous. A couple of them made some jokes when they figured out who I was and what happened and how I ended up there."
"This one older office looked at me as I was doing my fingerprints and he goes, 'So do you want the full experience today?' I was like, 'Uh, I don't know how to answer that,'" Scheffler laughed. "He was like, 'Come on, man, you want a sandwich?' And I was like, 'Sure, I'll take a sandwich.' I hadn't eaten breakfast yet."
"They were really kind. I'm grateful that we have such strong police and there are protectors out there. Like I said, we just got into a chaotic situation this morning. That's really all it was."
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