Scottie Scheffler miraculously made it to Valhalla Golf Club on Friday morning for the start of the second round of the PGA Championship after he was arrested trying to enter the course hours earlier.
We’re still learning plenty about the incident. What we know for sure is that the No. 1 golfer in the world was detained by Louisville police after driving down a road that was closed to traffic due to a fatal accident involving a pedestrian that occurred earlier Friday.
As the sport waited to find out if Scheffler would make his tee time — or play at all in the second round — sportsbooks didn’t flinch.
Despite his arrest, Scheffler’s odds to win the PGA Championship this weekend barely moved. He finished Thursday’s first round at four-under par and five strokes back of leader Xander Schauffele with +400 odds at DraftKings Sportsbook. He walked to the first tee on Friday at +450. At BetMGM, Scheffler’s odds didn’t move at all.
Scheffler barely moved from +400 yesterday evening at DraftKings to +450 this morning to win the PGA Championship.
Still 2nd best behind Schauffele (+240)
His +450 pre-tournament odds at BetMGM remain the same.
It would be nuts if he actually pulls this off
— Prince J. Grimes (@pgprincej) May 17, 2024
While it’s hard to even fathom the events of Friday morning occurring in the first place, the fact that it did happen, and that oddsmakers shrugged it off is so telling of how superior Scheffler’s game is right now.
This man has won four of the last five tournaments he’s played — including the Players Championship, the Masters, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the RBC Heritage. The only tournament during that stretch he didn’t win was the Texas Children’s Houston Open, where he tied for second.
Even after being placed in handcuffs, oddsmakers still weren’t willing to assume Scheffler’s game would suffer.
