While Scottie Scheffler undoubtedly put together a highlight reel in 2024 that most players would be delighted with having across their entire career, one of the most infamous moments of the year involving the world number one unquestionably came off the golf course.
Golf fans were left absolutely stunned when reports emerged on Friday morning at the PGA Championship that Scottie Scheffler had been arrested right outside Valhalla as police looked to deal with a tragic accident earlier in the day – before The Masters champion had arrived on the scene.
Ultimately, any charges against Scheffler were dropped, and he decided to take no legal action against the officer who did arrest him. But there was more than a moment where there seemed to be absolutely no chance that the 28-year-old would be able to start his second round in Kentucky.
In fact, it seems that few were more surprised to hear that Scheffler was going to make his delayed tee-time than his caddie, Ted Scott. Scott had planned to arrive at the course later than Scheffler, waking up to find out about the dramatic events which had taken place outside the gates.
Ted Scott stunned by what he heard Scottie Scheffler was doing in jail after being arrested at the PGA Championship
Scheffler had opened with a 67 to leave himself just outside the top 10 and five shots off the lead. And yet, he somehow managed to go one better in his second round, moving to within three of Xander Schauffele.
It turned out that Scheffler had done part of his warm-up in a jail cell when it started to become apparent that he may be able to still play on Friday. And speaking on Subpar about some of the events, Scott explained that he was stunned to hear that the two-time major champion was preparing himself to get back out there.
“Of course [I thought there was no chance he would continue playing]. And then I heard he’s stretching in jail, I’m like, ‘this guy is nuts’. But that just goes to show how competitive he is,” he said.
“One of my favourite stories about him being competitive is him and Sam Burns were in the pool playing pool volleyball at his house during the Byron Nelson one year, and we made these rules up because it was two on two and we needed to make the pool smaller so this is out, but there’s no line in the pool. And Sam hit a lob over Scottie and I’s head and the ball ended up going kind of in that grey area, and Scottie’s like, ‘it’s out’, and Sam’s like, ‘no it’s not, it’s in’, and they start arguing and then they start throwing the ball at each other and diving on each other, and I’m like somebody’s about to get hurt over pool volleyball. And literally, it was not like haha, it was like, ‘I’mma kill you’. They’re best friends, I’m breaking them up, going these guys are crazy. That’s when I realised how competitive he is.
“And to see him warming up in jail, or hearing about that, I’m like this guy is literally ready to come play. I mean, that’s amazing to me, I can’t even fathom that process. In my head, I would’ve been broken just from the whole scenario. So yeah, it was nuts, I never thought that was going to happen.”
One of the world number one’s most incredible performances
Even by Scheffler’s standards, what he did in that second round was spectacular. As Scott notes, most would have thrown in the towel almost from the moment that things started to go awry outside the golf course.
And it was absolutely no surprise at all that things seemed to catch up with Scheffler on Saturday, as he shot a 73 to take himself out of contention. Funnily enough, it was the third round where Scheffler did not have Scott alongside him due to his daughter’s graduation.
But Scheffler responded with a superb final round of 65 – the same score Schauffele produced to go on and win the tournament. And thankfully, he was subsequently given the chance to start putting the whole incident behind him with all charges being dropped.
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