It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was raining in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, May 17, when traffic became snarled heading near the entrance to Valhalla Golf Club on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky, where round two of the PGA Championship was soon to get underway.
The chaotic events of the early morning began at 5:07 am when a volunteer working security, named John Mills, tried to cross the busy road a quarter-mile from the golf course gates and was struck and killed by a shuttle bus. Numerous police cars, ambulances and police officers converged on the scene. At 6 a.m. Scottie Scheffler, No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, arrived in a clearly marked PGA Tour courtesy Lexus SUV. He was allowed to legally bypass the blocked traffic tie-up when he approached the golf club gate, only to be stopped by a Louisville Metro police officer named Bryan Gillis, according to reports. What happened next gets murkier. Gillis said he stopped Scheffler and attempted to give him instructions. Apparently without rolling his window down, Scheffler drove his Lexus 10 yards forward and stopped. Scheffler said he had been “proceeding as directed by police officers; there was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions.” Meanwhile, Gillis claimed he attached himself to Scheffler’s car and, as it accelerated forward, he was dragged for 30 feet. He claimed to have suffered pain, swelling and abrasions to his left wrist and knee. Next, Gillis “helped” Scheffler out of the vehicle, shoved him against the car and handcuffed him. He was taken to the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections where he was booked and charged with second-degree assault of a police officer (a felony), third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic. Scheffler was put in an orange jumpsuit, fingerprinted, photographed and put in a holding cell where he was given a sandwich and did his pre-warmup stretching. He was released on his own recognizance at 8:40 a.m.. He arrived back at the course thanks to a ride from Jimmy Kirchdorfer, tournament chairman and co-owner of Valhalla Golf Club, about an hour before his delayed 10:08 starting time.
Interestingly, there were civilian eyewitnesses to what transpired. Four ESPN on-air personalities – reporter Jeff Darlington, analyst and former U.S. Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy, and play-by-play announcers Dave Flemming and Bob Wischusen – were waiting at the gate when Scheffler pulled up alongside them. As the confrontation began, Darlington recorded it with his cell phone. Gillis did not use his body camera throughout the entire episode, for which he was later reprimanded by the Louisville chief of police.
Some doubt has been cast upon Gillis’ account of the episode. Wischusen recalls the moment this way: “When Scheffler drove past him (Gillis) the cop got very angry, pursuing the car. My impression was that he was kind of running alongside chasing the car, and maybe tripped and fell. I mean there was kind of an outcropping or median, you know, at the front gate. And keep in mind, it was raining. It was 6 o’clock in the morning. It was dark. I could see him stumble.”
Scheffler later recalled that, up until he hit his first tee shot on hole number one, his body was shaking from the moment of his arrest. Following an abbreviated warmup, Scheffler went out and shot a mindblowing 5-under-par 66. Scheffler’s Louisville attorney, Steve Romines, has repeatedly stated that a plea deal is out of the question, and it is very unlikely the charges will be dropped by Louisville authorities. So the case will probably go to trial. Scheffler’s arraignment is scheduled for June 3, the first practice day of Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament in which Scheffler plans to play.
