What Really Happened? Disorder & Degeneracy in Louisville - The Day the PGA Championship at Valhalla was Tee’d Up & Served Raw

By Greg Evans

A maniac sprinted across the median of the driveway leading into Valhalla Golf Club just before dawn, diving, like Ilya Zakharov, onto the hood of world #1 golfer, 2-time Master’s winner Scottie Scheffler’s rental car as he arrived for his 10:08 tee time for the second round of the PGA Championship.

“In the dimmet, we weren’t sure if it was a hungry and rabid bear, or maybe an escapee from a local accounting firm, but the beast moved with the determination of Ted Bundy,” one golf fan said.

Another early bird spectator was said to have heard Scheffler utter, “Jesus Christ, I thought it was a giant bat!” Some said it was a member of the local fuzz, but soon it became known that is was a middle school crossing guard. A rental cop for the event. $7.25 an hour. Angry. Bitter. Hateful. A list of honey-do chores taped to the fridge at home.

They are the brutes you have to be careful of. They’re the medium-starched shirt, pointy-nose breed that get off in showing up in court to give your mother a run thru and a good cry. Glued hairdos with a chip on the shoulder and a no drinking before 5 o’clock policy. Rented security is analogous to a cover band. They play the songs but not in the big venue.

In a bizarre scene, fit for a Bryant Park-cocaine-fueled after-party tabloid story, the local Barney clung to Scheffler’s car shrieking like an SS-Totenkopfverbände standing before a hot oven. The stunned golfer pulled to a stop and was immediately ripped from the driver’s seat, slammed against the car and draped in chains.

A local sports reporter, there to cover the match, was standing nearby and shouted, “Are you serious? This is preposterous. Sheffler is as much of a threat as choking in a fig Newton.”

A rather rotund member of Louisville’s traffic Reichssicherheitsdienst, eye-balled the young reporter ferociously, “Ain’t nuthin’ you can do!!! He’s goin’ down with a frown baby! His mug will be locked up in the jug fan boy!” Or something to that effect. 

Charged with every conceivable offense except Federal treason, the dangerous criminal, Scottie Scheffler, was subsequently escorted by SWAT to the clink for some good ole-fashion, in-house Rambo treatment, put in an orange onesie, photographed as a common hood, and paraded through the station like Brittany Spears with a bald head, after which the yardbird was tossed into a numberless cell.

It was a desperate scene. Like a bad Hiawatha trip. Word trickling out of the Jefferson County Circuit Court was Scheffler deserved 16 years of hard labor and the cost for new pair of polyester pants for the traffic thug who was subsequently rushed to the hospital for a skinned knee and a papered-cut ego.

A sleazy broadcast popped up briefly on one of the local news channels explaining that jailhouse snitch was somehow contacted by one of the cheap tabloids and reeled a tight yarn of how Scheffler tried to burrow out through the back of the toilet but was discovered and tossed into an oubliette. 

The odds are seriously stacked against him and the possibility of being banned from ever again entering the state of Kentucky, wholly inevitable. 

A conspiracy theorist might argue that that devious weasel Greg Norman was behind it all. You’d have to be a paranoid freak to believe that though…

I wandered into a local pub for a Kentucky Bourbon-Barrel IPA. Surprisingly it was the talk of the town, and barely 11 am. 

“Hey, you mind turning the golf on?” I asked the bartender lady.

“Scheffler is looking at some time, beatin’ up a cop n’ all,” a man beside me said.

“I heard they want to give him 16 years,” I said.

“He deserves more. We can’t have ruffians out there beatin’ folks up. Especially the law,” the man said.

“It was a circus. Pure degeneracy. Like a lion had escaped the zoo. Never seen anything like it,” I said.

“Well, I heard the Governor was incensed and made a call to the National Guard to be on the ready to maintain some semblance of southern peace and hospitality. That Texas Yankee won’t be gettin’ any riots started no time soon now,” he said slurping his Bush Light.

“Listen, it’s been a long morning and I have no energy left for politics,” I said. 

With the weight of the local police force weighing down on Scheffler, it seemed all was lost. No 5th win, no PGA Championship, no riding off into the bluegrass sunset with some good fire water and a slap on the wrist. Someone has to set the precedent. Someone has to take the fall to keep the rabble on edge.

News out of Louisville has been sketchy, a city plagued recently by violent crime particularly homicide - streets swarming with felons, gang rapists and sodomites and the renegade rebel of the PGA Tour still on the loose, fear hangs in the air like July humidity. While citizens cling to every breaking news report in limbo searching the sky for Batman’s glowing wings, all thats heard these days are the howls of pregnant alley cats and the indiscriminate discharging of filed-down firearms.

Even though he was able to leave Louisville city limits in the trunk of Rory Mcillroy’s Maserati, there was still a shot glass of hope justice would eventually prevail. Time always tells the true story, in the end.

To the horror of many, mostly ardent LIV supporters, the Machiavellian charges against Scheffler were dropped. Throughout greater metropolitan Louisville, pad locks, bear mace, and boxes of ammunition sold like Playboy office Christmas party tickets.

Stunned movers and shakers were understandably wary. Scheffler was obviously bonafide.

Whatever the talk and rumors tossed around, that’s all they were. But Scheffler’s story goes on. Louisville too. That’s the way it should be. On dark nights, teenagers smoke grass on car hoods and tell their own first-hand accounts of the grim takedown of the World #1 golfer. 

The weirdness of life on earth and human interaction and conflict is as bizarre as the blue marble that hosts these blood-sucking fleas, rolling through space with no concrete destination, no explanation, no outstanding purpose, but to wildly spin and travel in circles for eternity around a behemoth, cancer-causing fireball. It’s what keeps us all honest, humble, and searching for some tie-dyed meaning to the universe in a world that has no long-term reason for making any sense.

All that’s left is to go have as much fun as you can, and try not to just break even. That’s too boring and Steve Jobs simply wouldn’t like you for it. Oh yeah, and make sure you aren’t anywhere near Louisville with golf clubs and a farmer’s tan.