On the morning of May 17, Ted Scott found about the biggest golf news of 2024 pretty much the same way as the rest of us.
Someone texted him to let him know his boss, World No. 1 Scottie Scottie Scheffler, had been arrested outside of Valhalla Golf Club while on his way to his second-round tee time at the PGA Championship.
Scott recounted his perspective of the events on this week’s episode of GOLF Subpar with co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz.
He and Scheffler were actually staying together just a mile away from the PGA Championship venue. Scheffler left before his caddie and just as Scott was getting ready to leave, he got a strange text from a friend.
“When I woke up, probably 30 minutes after he had left, I got a text from one of my friends and said, ‘Sorry,'” Scott said. His first thought was that his friend was sorry Scott would be unable to caddie during the third round as he headed back home to attend his daughter’s high school graduation.
“I thought, it’s just a graduation. It’s no big deal. So I put that on the text and he goes, ‘No, Scottie.’ And I said, ‘Scottie, what?’ And he said, ‘Scottie got arrested.’
“And I thought, yeah right, you know, like, what are you talking about?
That’s when Scott said he saw the text from the PGA alerting him to the accident that occurred outside the golf course that eventually led to the dispute that landed Scheffler in jail.
“And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Scottie hit and killed somebody, like, in his car,'” Scott recalled. “That was my first thought was trying to put those two together. He accidentally hit somebody. Oh my gosh, this is terrible.”
Luckily, Scott quickly learned Scheffler was not involved in the accident that resulted in a vendor being killed while walking to Valhalla that morning. But he said it was still stressful making calls to Scheffler’s family and friends trying to figure out what he could do to help.
The thought went through Scott’s mind that they wouldn’t end up making Scheffler’s delayed 10:08 a.m. tee time.
But thankfully, Scheffler was released just before 9 a.m. by the Lousiville Metro P.D. and made it to Valhalla in time to play his second round, where he shot a remarkable 66 and even said afterward that he stretched in a jail cell.
Scheffler backed up during round 3 and finished T8. His charges, which included three misdemeanors and a felony for allegedly assaulting a police officer, were dropped 12 days later.
The whole ordeal was just another example to Scott of how strong Scheffler’s character is.
“It was really cool to see his character shine above that situation and, the truth got revealed,” he said. “And know that even he even had such a good heart as to not sue the city, you know, for what happened, which is very easy to do in that situation, to be emotional, because he knew it would affect the citizens of Louisville.”
