There’s nothing that can deter Scottie Scheffler’s impressive season, other than perhaps a brief stint behind bars.
That’s according to Rory McIlroy, who quipped about the reigning Masters champion’s detainment in Louisville last month when he was arrested before the second round of the PGA Championship.
“Only thing that took him away from winning a golf tournament was being in a jail cell for an hour,” McIlroy said Tuesday in a press conference ahead of the U.S. Open, according to PGA Tour Digital.
Scheffler, coming off his fifth victory of 2024 following Sunday’s win at the Memorial Tournament, was arrested outside Valhalla Golf Club on May 17 due to a misunderstanding about traffic flow.
He was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding signals from officer directing traffic. The two-time major winner was later released from custody and made his second-round tee time.
Scheffler, 27, tied for eighth in the PGA Championship, shooting a 13-under for the weekend.
The charges against Scheffler were dropped weeks later.
Scheffler is paired with McIlroy and Xander Schauffele, this year’s PGA Championship victor, in the first and second rounds of the U.S. Open, which tees off Thursday at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina.
McIlroy, 35, is chasing his fifth major win and his second U.S. Open victory.
He won the U.S. Open in 2011, his first major title, at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.
“Obviously getting my hands on a fifth major has taken quite a while, but I’m more confident than ever that I’m right there, that I’m as close as I’ve ever been,” McIlroy said Tuesday, per Sky Sports.
McIlroy shot a 12-under for a 12th-place tie at the 2024 PGA Championship.
He played just days after news broke of his divorce from wife Erica Stoll.
The couple was married for seven years and share 3-year-old daughter Poppy.
The U.S. Open runs from June 13-16.
