In the past five weeks, Scottie Scheffler has donned a green jacket for winning the Masters, a plaid jacket for winning the RBC Heritage and an orange jumpsuit for getting arrested prior to the second round of the PGA Championship.
To call Friday morning’s events bizarre would not do it justice. It’s possibly the strangest incident we’ve ever seen prior to a golf tournament.
And despite it all, Scheffler compartmentalized like a champion, shooting a 5-under 66 just hours after an arrest that shook the sports world and sent Twitter ablaze with memes.
There is still confusion over exactly what happened outside Valhalla Golf Club in the early morning rain and darkness. We know that, tragically, a man was struck by a shuttle bus and pronounced dead on the scene around 5 a.m. Traffic around the course became chaotic and congested as emergency responders tried to reach the victim. The PGA of America announced in a statement that the man, John Mills, was a worker with an on-site vendor at the tournament.
About an hour later, Scheffler was attempting to get to the course in preparation for his early morning tee time. According to a report released by the Louisville Metro Police Department, detective Bryan Gillis was directing traffic when Scheffler pulled around stopped traffic. ESPN’s Jeff Darlington, who happened to witness the incident, reported that the stopped traffic included a parked bus that didn’t have a driver.