CROMWELL, Conn. — Scottie Scheffler earned his sixth PGA Tour victory of the season, but there’s no denying the 2024 Travelers Championship was a bit more interesting than the others.
And while part of that was because of the jam-packed leaderboard and eventual playoff against close friend Tom Kim, the protester-instigated chaos undoubtedly added to it.
Five protesters, four of whom wore shirts that read “No Golf On A Dead Planet,” stormed the 18th green as Scheffler, then leading Kim by one stroke, and his playing partners were on the green. The five protesters were tackled, and in one case body-slammed, before being escorted out in handcuffs.
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Scheffler explained his view of things after he ultimately claimed the title following a one-hole playoff against Kim.
“Yeah, it was definitely a bit weird,” Scheffler said. “I saw one person out of the corner of my eye, and then I saw about five police officers sprinting around. From my point of view, they got it taken care of pretty dang fast, and so we were very grateful for that. It seemed to go by really quickly to us.”
Scheffler was captured on a video smirking after he saw the first protester run into the sand trap. Four others then came from the other direction and ran onto the green.
“When something like that happens, you don’t really know what’s happening, so it can kind of rattle you a little bit,” Scheffler said. “Because there’s people running around the green and there’s police officers running around the green and you don’t know if they’re peaceful, you don’t know what they’re doing, you have no idea what’s going on, so it can be a bit stressful.
“But fortunately, I was out there, and you could kind of see me and Akshay (Bhatia) talking to each other for a minute, me and Tom (Kim) talking to each other for a minute, basically just trying to calm down. That can be a stressful situation and you would hate for the tournament to end on something weird happening because of a situation like that, and so I felt like Tom and I both tried to calm each other down so we could give it our best shot there on 18.”
Not to be overshadowed, though, was the tournament’s conclusion.
Kim converted a 10-foot-six-inch putt just minutes after protestors were escorted out. With the putt, Kim tied Scheffler at 22-under par and sent it to sudden death. Scheffler ultimately got the best of Kim when they replayed the par-4 18th hole and earned the victory.
