The man who filmed the arrest of Scottie Scheffler tells his full story

Jeff Darlington did not think his trip to work at the PGA Championship on Friday morning would end the subject of a national media history.

His stimulation in the dark by the embassy suites at Louisville in Valhalla Golf Club was created for not interested: 30 minutes of boredom in some interstates and a two -lane highway in Kentucky before a long days in golf. He did not know the context he would say hello when he managed to find a traffic jam outside the golf course – the context that would change his life with the time the sun arose in Louisville on Friday morning. Soon, however, Jeff Darlington I would teach them all: History of World no. 1 The stunning arrest of the playerFor a shocking police response and his role as one of the eyewitnesses of the Golf history of the year.

ESPN reporter was a young Golf TV when he jumped in his car before dawn Friday morning at the PGA 2024 championship. He would be a Diehard Golf forever, and he would wait a long time for his employers to search for them in their golf portfolio. Now, in Valhalla, he would take his progress.

Darlington was a unique adaptation for golf. Raised in Florida, he will cut his teeth as a reporter printed for the University of Sports in Florida and Miami Dolphins before moving to TV with the coverage of ESPN’s NFL. He was, in many ways, the archetype of the modern sports reporter: wholesale in stories and minors in skill. Supporting both of these skills was a backdrop in journalism; Context business.

It was there, outside Valhalla Golf Club in the pre -dawn hour, which Darlington first without something special. A white, white brand SUV, cut in front of a Powout of traffic, leaving a police officer screaming in a yellow rain following back. Seconds later, the officer pulled the driver out of the car and placed him in handcuffs.

Only then did Darlington take a good look at the driver, a bearded young man, his dresses decorated with an incomprehensible swoosh nike. Louisville police had arrested Scottie Scheffler, the world’s number 1 golf player.

Darlington immediately left the car and started recording a video on his phone while heading to officers. He tried to talk to the officers – he heard in the video screaming “Guys! “ – But when it became clear that they would arrest Scheffler anyway, he stopped registering and starting reporting.

spice There were several meanings in the minutes after Scheffler’s arrest, but mainly that meant DETAIL Darlington had seen every second of the interaction, from Scheffler’s attempt to follow the traffic in the Golf Course until the squad left the Scheffler scene in the back. The reporter was one of the only people in the world who knew exactly what would happen.

“I had every context,” Darlington said. “Many times for any such story, you have no context.”

But even with the benefit of a first person’s picture, he was trying to understand what he saw.

“If you walk in such a situation, you have to assume that law enforcement has a reason to do so,” he said. “But then there is a part of me who is saying, only logically, feeling really aggressive and really unnecessary. And then you add a layer I’m familiar with Scottie Scheffler. I certainly know his reputation. We’re talking about someone who is not just no THAT boy. “

Only after Scheffler had expelled that Darlington says he understood the full field of what happened. The rest of the world failed to see the innocence of the situation, how easily it could have happened to anyone. Traffic Chokepoint, the player who would have been instructed to bypass him, and yes, the officer who would not be able to join why his orders were not immediately followed – all were reliable points of failure in Scheffler’s situation reaching a friendly conclusion.

Scheffler did not deserve to be liberated based on his fame, but his fame was another critical part of the story. Had he not been a professional golf player for a while, he would not try to enter the Golf Course, and he might not have believed that security in the country would see his decency vehicle and leave it. And if the officers try to learn who Scheffler was, they could have understood his motive to cut traffic and could NO have followed with the arrest.

“No one wanted to be adult in the room,” Darlington says. “Until the boy came after me with his pillow and said, “And who was what we just arrested?” I go, This was Scottie Scheffler. It was only at the point I realized, ‘Oh, you guys have no idea what you are coming in.’ “

NEWSLETTER

Sign up for the hot golf newspaper!

Want exclusive golf media news in your box? Sign up for the hot germ newspaper with James Colgan!

register

Police were not the only one operating on the instinct. Darlington came out in action the second Scheffler came out of the car. Without thinking of this, he would click on his internal reporter: seeking to understand the situation in its entirety and cover it as such.

“I had friends to say, You must have been arrested with“Says Darlington with laughing.” You never know how to handle that situation until you are in it. “

In the days that followed, Darlington felt concerned that history could have burned a bridge with Scheffler. He was not trying to dramatize one of Scheffler’s most serious moments of life, and he was probably not trying to get fame from Scheffler’s legal problems. But the arrest was also one of Darlington’s life stories; It was his duty to cover it fairly.

Darlington arrived a few days later to apologize for the media circus, but Scheffler interrupted it.

“He was worried that I thought he was doing it to help himself,” Scheffler said in a story that was later broadcast IN Forgive my receipt. “I was like ‘Listening to man, I’m glad someone saw what happened.” “

Indeed, Darlington had treated the situation perfectly – and his story of eyewitnesses had served as a necessary component of Scheffler’s eventual release. Scheffler had proven and intuitive, one of the main reasons for the existence of the press: if not for the coverage of Darlington, the truth of the situation could never have come to light – and the titles would have read much differently.

“What really blows my mind, which is one thing but reason I was arrested is because the police officer accused me the second instance attack, “Scheffler said.” This is a very serious charge. “

Even if Darlington did not want to take advantage of the situation, his career has benefited from the story. After a strong week of coverage in Masters, he will serve as one of the most prominent network voices in the PGA championship in Charlotte, NC, where a reunion interview with Scheffler is at work.

If there is a lesson from the morning of Scheffler’s arrest, Darlington says it is simpler than the arguments they have played on social media over the past 12 months. That morning’s story at the PGA Championship is not about good boys and bad people, but about the virtue of the coldest heads.

“I don’t care if it is Scottie Scheffler or someone, he deserves to calm everyone, to appreciate the fact that there were maybe some misunderstandings about where people should go, and understand things,” Darlington said. “It doesn’t matter who he is, everyone deserves that context.”

Jeff Darlington’s business context, and many days this is nothing special … By the morning it changed the world of golf.