An ESPN reporter witnessed the event.
According to ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington, who witnessed the incident, Scheffler was trying to drive around the crash scene. At one point, according to Darlington, Gillis attached himself to the side of Scheffler’s car. Scheffler stopped his car as he turned into the entrance of Valhalla Golf Club.
After about 20 to 30 seconds, Scheffler rolled down his window to talk to the officer. The officer grabbed Scheffler’s arm to pull him out of the vehicle, according to Darlington. The officer reached inside the vehicle to open the door, and once Scheffler was pulled out, he was pushed against the car and placed in handcuffs.
Darlington was standing at the entrance when Scheffler was detained. Darlington said Scheffler turned to him and asked, “Can you help?”
According to Darlington, an officer instructed him to back away.
Darlington is not some low level reporter either, so presumably we’ll get a pretty straightforward accounting of what actually happened.
“He was going into Valhalla to work out,” Romines said. "He was getting ready for his tee time. They were directing traffic. He held his credential out and was going in like they’d been instructed to.
Apparently, they have credentials (likely lanyards), not window stickers, which makes sense since most folks are probably using rental cars or drivers. Complicating matters is that the officer in question was not a regular member of the event crowd control, so he likely wasn’t informed of the established processes and credentials.
My inclination is generally to assume that claims of injuries and damage from police following an incident should be taken with a massive grain of salt. But I also tend to assume that every celebrity, star athlete and elite will act like an entitled asshole in most situations, so this is a real pickle.