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A group of climate change protesters stormed in as the leaders lined up their putts on the final hole of the Travelers Championship in Connecticut on Sunday, delaying the finish by about five minutes.
Protesters sprayed white and red powder, leaving stains on the grass, before Scotty Scheffler, Tom Kim and Akshay Bhatia finished their laps. At least one of the group was wearing a white t-shirt that read “NO GOLF ON A DEAD PLANET.”
“I mean, I was scared for my life,” Bhatia said. “I didn’t even know what was going on. Suddenly four, five people run onto the green… I was in shock and my pulse was high. It got low and once something like that happened, I was just freaked out, I just tried to move to where everyone was. It was hard to do, I think it was just weird.
After the protesters were mobbed by police and escorted out, Scheffler missed a potential 26-foot putt for the title before chipping in for par. Kim, who trailed by one stroke heading into the final hole, sank a 10-foot birdie putt to tie with Scheffler and send the tournament to a sudden-death playoff.
Kim said the layoff actually helped his game.
“It kind of slowed things down,” he said. “It took away the meaning of the shot for a second. Because for the last 17 and a half holes, all you think about is golf, and suddenly, when that happens, your mind goes into a complete state—it’s like you’re hardly playing golf anymore. For a moment I thought it was a dream.”
Scheffler, the world No. 1, cashed in on the first playoff hole, the 18th. After the players finished regulation, workers with leaf blowers came out to clean up the remaining dust and the location of the hole was moved before the playoff.
The crowd around the 18th green called out the protesters with chants of “USA”, shouted profanities and cheered for the police who intervened.
“I think luckily for Tom and I, we’ve both been there, we’re great friends, and so we were able to sit there and kind of relax each other before, because you don’t really know what’s going on, ‘I really don’t understand the situation,'” said Scheffler after his victory. “There are people running everywhere, and you really don’t know what’s going to happen. So it was a bit confusing. Fortunately, the police did a great job of sorting everything out very quickly. I don’t know how fast it was, but it seemed very fast to us. So we are very grateful to them.”
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Climate protesters have disrupted major US sporting events in the past. Last Septemberthe US Open tennis semi-final between Coco Gauff and Karolina Muhova was interrupted when one of the protesters stuck his feet to the floor of the stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
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