Scottie Scheffler’s arrest and Xander Schauffele’s triumph – what happened at the 2024 PGA Championship?

By now Scottie Scheffler is famously anti-drama. He swerves the stuff, instead electing for a life of unflappable talent and coasting to mundane supremacy at the tee. But that narrative took a hand-cuffed diversion this time last year.

The world No 1 had arrived in Louisville for the PGA Championship as the clear pre-tournament favourite following victory at both The Players Championship and The Masters while cutting an imperious figure at the top of golf. It was business as usual, the back-to-back Green Jacket owner tipped to govern the field in emphatic fashion once more.

He had opened his week in ominous form by shooting a round of 67 to thrust himself into the mix in chase of early leader Xander Schauffele, only for his tournament to take a turn away from the greens.

Come Friday a mugshot of him in an orange prison jumpsuit was being released by the Louisville Metropolitan Department of Corrections and scattered across social media after Scheffler had been arrested and taken away in handcuffs charged with four offences earlier that morning. The most anti-Scheffler story was primed to take the sporting world by storm.

Play on day two of the PGA Championship had been delayed after a fatal road accident resulted in the death of local man John Mills, an on-site vendor at Valhalla. Mills passed away after being hit by a shuttle bus at around 5am Friday morning, with the incident creating the traffic jam in which Scheffler sat.

Scheffler attempted to move around the jam on his way to the course until he was instructed to stop his car by a police officer, who was then ‘attached’ to the vehicle as Scheffler proceeded to move on.

Scheffler eventually stopped at the club’s entrance before being pulled out of the car and placed in handcuffs by officer Bryan Gillis.

The incident had meanwhile been captured by ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington, who had also been stuck in traffic and later posted the footage on his X account in which he is asked for help by Scheffler. In the same video Darlington is then told “he’s going to jail and it ain’t nothing you can do about it” by an officer.

Scheffler faced a charge of second-degree assault of a police officer and three third-degree charges as he was taken to a downtown police station before being released just over 70 minutes later, a fresh mental hurdle beckoning amid an extraordinary twist in Kentucky.

“I was sitting there waiting to kind of go in and I asked him [one of the officers], ‘hey, excuse me, can you just come hang out with me for a few minutes so I can calm down?’,” Scheffler said at the time. “He [officer] came out and we had a nice chat and then 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.”

Cue one of sport’s most bizarre ‘so I guess you’re wondering how I ended up here?’ moments.

He would arrive little under an hour before his fog-delayed tee time, welcomed back by his fellow competitors while subject to lowered expectations in light of a chaotic morning that had seen him begin his warm-up in a jail cell. The prospect of Scheffler stretching on his mat in the surroundings of hardened criminals makes for quite the picture, not to mention sitcom gold.

Still, they do not come much cooler than Scottie Scheffler.

“I didn’t really feel like I would make my tee time until one of the officers at the jail came by my holding cell and knocked on the window and said ‘let’s go’,” Scheffler explained at the time.

“He said ‘get ready’ and motioned to start rolling up my mat. Then I poked my head at the TV and I was like, ‘oh, might be able to get there’, we’ll see how bad the traffic is getting in and out.”

“As far as best rounds of my career, I would say it was pretty good,” Scheffler added after his second round. “I definitely never imagined ever going to jail, and I definitely never imagined going to jail the morning before one of my tee times for sure! It was definitely a nice round of golf. My heart goes out to the family.”

The response was a staggering second-round 66 to hoist himself within three of the halfway lead, his most unlikely triumph yet threatening to come to fruition.

Scheffler closed out what might have felt like his longest day in golf by underling his sympathies for the family of Mr Mills while describing how he had been “shaking for an hour in shock and fear”. Only when he saw himself on TV from his cell did his tee time occur to him.

While the world wondered whether a remarkable Scheffler feat was brewing, Schauffele had ideas of his own. Having established an early lead with an opening-round 62, he went on to card back-to-back 68s before closing out with a decisive fourth-round 65 to edge out Bryson DeChambeau by one stroke with the lowest 72-hole total in men’s major history.

Schauffele had registered 12 top-10 finishes at a major, including five top-five finishes, heading into the week as something of a ‘nearly man’ among golf’s elite. Nearly man, no more. While Scheffler’s ordeal dictated the headlines, Schauffele ignited his reign as a major champion.

“It was going to be that conversation until – if I didn’t win one ever, it would have been that conversation that would have haunted me until I was done playing probably,” said Schauffele on Tuesday. “That’s just how the game goes.

“Luckily I was able to rattle that one off, my first one at Valhalla, the PGA, which was awesome. Yeah, I feel similar.

“I feel like I’ve done it before, but at the same time, I feel I’m still trying to prove myself as well. I don’t look at it too different or feel too different as a whole.”

Scheffler had been pegged back by a 73 on Saturday before trotting round in 65 on the final day to finish eight shots back in a tie for eighth. Still, he had remained THE story at Valhalla, golf’s delicately-spoken and carnage-repellent champion serving up one of sport’s surprise oxymorons.

If the story had not already adopted a laughable feel, it was cemented when the police report had detailed how the uniform trousers, notably valued at 80 dollars, worn by officer Gillis “were damaged beyond repair”. Charges against Scheffler were subsequently dropped 12 days later.

By the time he is finished, it may go down as one of multiple comedic moments associated with the on-course genius of Scheffler, this being the same world No 1 who also missed the opening weeks of 2025 after injuring his hand while making ravioli for Christmas dinner.

Who will win the PGA Championship? Watch throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage of the opening round begins on Thursday from 1pm on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports or stream with NOW.

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