Scottie Scheffler had no problem poking fun at his 2024 arrest in Happy Gilmore 2.
Warning: Spoilers below for Happy Gilmore 2.
Scheffler, 29, along with fellow pro golfers Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and more, joined Adam Sandler in his highly anticipated sequel, which premiered on Netflix Friday, July 25. While many fans anticipated today’s hottest PGA players would have brief cameos in the sports comedy, the group of athletes ended up playing a more important role than anticipated.
Happy Gilmore 2 picks up with Sandler’s titular character nearly 30 years after the events of the original 1996 film. Now a widower after the death of his wife, Virginia (Julie Bowen), he attempts to get back into the game post-retirement with the hopes of winning enough money to send their daughter, Vennita (Sunny Sandler), to a prestigious European ballet school.
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Things take a turn when a new league of evil golfers emerge, threatening to change the game forever. In order to protect the integrity of the sport he once loved — and win the cash prize for his daughter — Happy teams up with his PGA crew to defeat the Maxi Golf League for good.
In order to prepare for the event, Happy and his former nemesis, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald), team up to prepare the PGA pros for a more “out of the box” tournament. After putting them through a gauntlet that includes getting hit in the private areas with baseballs to reliving their worst mistakes on the green, they prepare to face off against Maxi, a team which includes Haley Joel Osment and Oliver Hudson.
Scheffler is one of the first players to tee off, but Hudson’s smack talk quickly gets him fired up and he punches him in the face — a move he learned earlier in the film from Happy. He’s immediately disqualified from the event and arrested by law enforcement.
“Not again,” he quips as they take him away in handcuffs.
Later, viewers catch up with Scheffler as he watches the tournament from his jail cell, embracing his fellow inmates when Happy wins.
Off screen, Scheffler was infamously arrested in May 2024 and charged with felony assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic.
At the time, Us Weekly confirmed that Scheffler had been detained by the Louisville Metro Police after a pedestrian was stuck in an accident and roads into the Valhalla Golf Club were closed, delaying the PGA Championship. Scheffler was stopped while trying to enter the golf club through the blocked road. ESPN later reported that Detective Bryan Gillis tried to stop Scheffler from proceeding but the golfer “refused to comply and accelerated forward,” allegedly dragging the detective to the ground.
Scheffler spent just over an hour in jail before all charges against him were dropped and he made his way back to Valhalla for the second round of the tournament.
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“There was a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do,” Scheffler said in a statement at the time. “I never intended to disregard any of the instructions. I’m hopeful to put this to the side and focus on golf today. Of course, all of us involved in the tournament express our deepest sympathies to the family of the man who passed away in the earlier accident this morning. It truly puts everything in perspective.”
Scheffler’s PGA peers, meanwhile, claimed that he maintained his sense of humor about the ordeal. Xander Schauffele said during a May 2024 episode of the “Pardon My Take” podcast that the athlete “took it like a champ,” noting that the other pros were “heckling Scottie” in their group chat shortly after.
Happy Gilmore 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
