Eye-witness account of Scottie Scheffler arrest paints new light on PGA Championship incident

An eye-witness has provided further details of the arrest of Scottie Scheffler after the world No. 1 was reprimanded by police when attempting to enter Valhalla Golf Club at last week's PGA Championship.

The world of golf was rocked at the second major championship of the season last week, after Scheffler was seen being handcuffed and put into a police car prior to his second round in Kentucky. Earlier that morning, a car accident that took the life of tournament worker John Mills had led to road closures around the golf course.

Scheffler then arrived at Valhalla around one hour later, and being none-the-wiser to the accident, attempted to bypass traffic in order to gain access to the player entrance to the golf course.

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In doing so he was eventually stopped by police, who later drove him to a local police station and charged him with second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding signals from officers directing traffic. In the days following, new information on the incident has emerged.

ESPN reported Bob Wischusen was at the scene, and has had say on the moment that saw Scheffler arrested. Describing the actions of the police officer in question, Bryan Gillis, Wischusen told Golf.com: "He was pretty, you know, enthusiastic, let’s say."

When Gillis attempted stopped Scheffler, the ESPN reporter claimed that the officer said: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you? Where are you going? Get back in line. You’re not allowed to come through here.” Reports claimed that Gillis moved towards Scheffler's car as the world No. 1 began to pull away.

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The reporter went on: "When [Scheffler] drove past him, the cop got very angry pursuing the car... My impression was he was kind of running alongside chasing the car, and maybe he tripped and fell. I mean, there was kind of an outcropping or median, you know, by the front gate. And keep in mind, it was raining. It was 6 o’clock in the morning. It was dark.”

Delving further into the incident, Wishcusen said: "He runs up to the driver’s side, and with the butt end of his flashlight starts screaming, you know, ‘Get out of the car, get out of the car’ — banging on the window — ‘shut the engine off, get out of the car. I’m a police officer...

"[The officer] put him up against the car and put him in handcuffs. That was when we realised — you know, all the way up until then we’re like, 'Oh my God, whoever is in this car, there’s about to be an arrest of some sort. And then it was, ‘Oh my God, it’s Scottie Scheffler.'”

In the aftermath, the police report claimed: "The subject refused to comply and accelerated forward, dragging Detective Gillis to the ground." Scheffler addressed the incident in a press conference with reporters following his second round having returned to the course, describing it as a 'misunderstanding'.

The Masters champion's court date had initially been set for Tuesday (May 21). This however has since been pushed back to June 3 due to a schedule conflict for his attorney, Steve Romines.