PGA Tour winner: ‘I was scared for my life’ during shock protest at Travelers Championship

By | June 24, 2024

PGA Tour winner: ‘I was scared for my life’ during shock protest at Travelers Championship

Extinction Rebellion protestors stormed onto the 18th green in the closing stages of the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour on Sunday night.

Akshay Bhatia watching on as the protest plays out

Two-time PGA Tour winner Akshay Bhatia admits ‘I was scared for my life’ as a shock climate change protest broke out on the 18th green in the final round of the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) protestors stormed on the 18th green as the final group consisting of Bhatia, Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim were about to hit their birdie putts.

Six protestors ran onto the green sporting T-shirts with ‘NO GOLF ON A DEAD PLANET’ written on them.

They also carried smoke bombs, which left marks on the green close to the putting lines of both Bhatia and Kim.

Police sprinted onto the green within seconds and took each of them down.

The shock protest was met by cries of ‘USA, USA’ from the gallery and a lot of booing.

All of the protestors were very quickly arrested and led out of the grounds in cuffs.

After a five-minute pause to clear up the mess and deal with the situation, Scheffler and Bhatia both went on to miss their 25-footers.

Kim then holed his eight-footer to force a playoff with Scheffler, but he would go on to lose at the first extra hole when making a bogey back down the 18th.

A new hole was cut for the first extra hole at the front of the green as a result of the mess created by the protest group.

It marked a sixth win for Scheffler in his last 10 starts on the PGA Tour.

He was greeted on the 18th green by his wife Meredith and new-born baby boy, Bennett.

The runaway World No.1 becomes the first player since Tiger Woods in 2009 to win six times in a PGA Tour season.

Scheffler also smashed what many deemed an ‘unbreakable’ record set by Woods in 2000.

Speaking to reporters after the round, two-time PGA Tour winner Bhatia revealed his shock at the incident.

“I was scared for my life,” said Bhatia.

“I didn’t even really know what was happening.

“But thankfully the cops were there and kept us safe, because that’s, you know, that’s just weird stuff.”

Scheffler and Bhatia watch on in disbelief at the protest

Scheffler, who was arrested during the US PGA for misunderstanding the traffic flow situation due to to a fatality ahead of the second round, added: “Officers got it taken care of pretty dang fast, and so we were very grateful for that.

“When something like that happens, you don’t really know what’s happening, so it can kind of rattle you a little bit.

“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.”

The XR protest group claim they made the decision to disrupt the closing stages of the Travelers Championship due to three people being injured on site after lightning struck a tree close to the course on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, XR protestors caused a two-hour delay to the final round of the KLM Open on the DP World Tour, which was eventually won by Guido Migliozzi

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