World No 1 Scottie Scheffler arrested on way to course for PGA ...

The World’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler was arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer on his way to the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky for the second round of the PGA Championship on Friday.

Scheffler, 27, who won the 2024 Masters last month, tried to circumnavigate a traffic cordon set up by police after an earlier accident on his way to the course.

ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington witnessed the entire incident, which can be seen here. 

Darlington tweeted: “Scheffler has been detained by police in handcuffs after a misunderstanding with traffic flow led to his attempt to drive past a police officer into Valhalla Golf Club.

“The police officer attempted to attach himself to Scheffler’s car, and Scheffler then stopped his vehicle at the entrance to Valhalla. The police officer then began to scream at Scheffler to get out of the car.

“When Scheffler exited the vehicle, the officer shoved Scheffler against the car and immediately placed him in handcuffs. He is now being detained in the back of a police car.”

A mugshot of Scheffler in an orange jumpsuit was published by the Louisville Metropolitan Department of Corrections.

The charges against the golfer were listed as second-degree assault of an officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding police traffic signals.

Scheffler, who shot an opening round 68 at the season’s second major, was due to tee off in his second round at 9:08 am local time. Organisers subsequently pushed back all tee times.

Sky News reported that Scheffler was later released and that he had arrived at Valhalla. Sky reporter Kira K Dixon said that Scheffler told journalists at the course that “he wasn’t going to be commenting” but “popped his head into player dining and said ‘hello I’m here’ and continued on”.

Dixon added: “It seems to be all signs pointing to him having a warm-up, that he will play, and he should be at that 10.08 tee-time … spirits are fine … he is ready to go … he’ll try to get into the headspace that is required to compete at a major”.

Scheffler, who has won four of his last five tournaments, is the overwhelming favourite for the PGA title. DM