It’s been one full year since Scottie Scheffler was arrested on his way to the PGA Championship.
And even 365 days later, the story remains an absurd one.
To commemorate the one-year anniversary, ESPN ran a segment recapping and reflecting on the golf superstar’s arrest while attempting to enter the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. And that included input from the network’s own Jeff Darlington, who broke the story while on-scene.
“I took that video at 6:01 a.m. I was covering my first PGA Championship and I was just starting my day,” Darlington says in the segment, which began with the footage he captured from his cell phone of the arrest. “World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler was just starting his day too… it was early, it was dark, and it was raining. It wasn’t even clear until he was out of his car and in handcuffs right here that it was even Scottie Scheffler.”
The memory for me remains pretty surreal. It was this day at the PGA Championship last year when Scottie Scheffler got arrested. As Scheffler told me, “I had a crazy day, but there’s a lot worse things that could have happened.”
We relived the morning together for ESPN: pic.twitter.com/GtGIH8pscr
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) May 16, 2025
The segment also included a present-day conversation between Darlington and Scheffler reflecting on the arrest, in which the two-time Masters champion was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer, a class-C felony, and three misdemeanors after allegedly failing to abide by an officer’s directions following an unrelated fatal accident that had occurred near the course.
“One thing that I specifically remember was you trying to approach the police officers and say something like, ‘hey, you know, I don’t know what’s going on, but something ain’t right. Like, this is Scottie, he’s playing in the golf tournament,'” Scheffler told Darlington. “And you can just hear the tone of their voice that it went from just normal pulling into the golf course to a situation that was very serious for whatever reason it was.”
The segment also included an interview with Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who recalled the chaos of the morning between both the fatal accident outside of the high profile event and Scheffler’s arrest, as well as James Kirchdorfer Jr., the co-owner of the Valhalla Golf Club. It also featured the fan who quickly got a t-shirt featuring Scheffler’s mugshot made in time to wear it during his ensuing round just hours later.
All involved seem to agree that the situation was just a big misunderstanding, as did case’s prosecutor, who dropped all charges less than two weeks later. Friday’s segment ended with a shot of Scheffler laughing after reflecting on the incident with Darlington, a much different disposition than the one the two displayed this time a year ago.
