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During tense moments in which he was confronting police officers over their arrest of golfer Scottie Scheffler, ESPN’s Jeff Darlington wasn’t sure if he’d still be covering the PGA Championship—or handcuffed and thrown in jail.
“It was crazy,” recalls Darlington about that fateful morning of May 17, 2024. “I was walking the line between being a journalist, an event reporter at the PGA Championship, who recognizes that he’s here to cover the No. 1 golfer in the world playing golf, and a human being who’s witnessing something that feels off.”
Darlington’s dedication has paid off. ESPN is signing the reporter to a multi-year contract extension, Front Office Sports has learned.
In addition to covering the NFL, Darlington will officially join ESPN’s coverage teams for the Masters, PGA Championship, and Wimbledon. The 43-year-old will continue to appear on Sunday NFL Countdown and SportsCenter. As part of his expanded role, he’ll also be part of ESPN’s coverage team for the network’s first Super Bowl telecast on Feb. 14, 2027.
The versatile Darlington first covered the Masters and PGA Championships in 2024 and Wimbledon in 2025. ESPN is also utilizing his storytelling talents as an essayist. As the NFL’s 2025 season kicks off, he’ll report live from the Buccaneers at Falcons game this weekend.
Darlington’s previous contract was set to expire on Sept. 1. While the potential free agent received overtures from several suitors, he said his respect for ESPN leaders such as Burke Magnus, Mike McQuade, and Seth Markman made it an easy choice to stay with the four letters.
“There’s really no better place than ESPN for me. We have rights to the type of events that [fit] my skill-set from a storytelling standpoint,” says Darlington, who left NFL Network for ESPN in 2016.
The 20-year media veteran won a Sports Emmy in 2020 for his story on former Steelers receiver Antonio Brown. But his public profile exploded after he broke two huge stories surrounding the high-profile arrests of Scheffler and Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill in 2024.
In the wee hours before the second round of the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, Darlington witnessed a “screaming” Louisville cop shove Scheffler against a car and handcuff him. As they led the world’s No. 1 golfer away, Darlington closely followed, filming the arrest with his cell phone. That led to a tense standoff with police, who repeatedly warned him to “step back.” Darlington decided his best approach was to simply “chronicle” the event as the eyes and ears of the public.
At another point, the persistent Darlington went around the back of the patrol car to try to interview Scheffler through the window. That’s when officers threatened to handcuff him too.
“At this point, I’d made it clear I was a reporter. I was probably feeling a little too brazen. At one point, a police officer said, ‘We warned you, we’re going to arrest you.’ I said with a smart-ass tone, ‘For what?’” recalled Darlington. “They said, ‘Interfering with a police investigation.’ To which I said, ‘You know, that sounds like that could stick…’”
Once the police officers drove a stunned Scheffler to jail, Darlington called McQuade, then broke the Scheffler story on X/Twitter. He quickly followed that up with his video of the arrest. Those two tweets generated over 45 million views. Darlington then raced to a local studio for a live on-air appearance with Mike Greenberg of Get Up, who called his reporting “extraordinary.”
A few months later, on Sept. 8, 2024, Darlington was in the right place at the right time yet again, scoring an exclusive live interview with agent Drew Rosenhaus after Hill was thrown to the concrete by police officers outside the Dolphins home opener. I asked Magnus at last fall’s live “Tuned In” event: Does Darlington have a secret police scanner nobody knows about?
The decision by ESPN’s top brass to award an NFL reporter such as Darlington choice assignments like the Masters, PGA Championship, and Wimbledon is a sure sign his star is rising inside Bristol.
Darlington and Scheffler will be linked forever. The superstar golfer recognized Darlington that day in Louisville. During a personal chat this year, Darlington tried to make clear to Scheffler that he was not trying to build his career off the most embarrassing moment of the golfer’s life. He was simply doing his job as a journalist. Scheffler, Darlington says, has been “very cool” about the whole incident.
“We did one interview about it. But I’ve tried to just move on. I want to be a golf reporter,” Darlington says. “At the end of the day, I’m cool with everything that happened. I recognize the significance to my career. But I also would like to cover golf. And he happens to be the No. 1 player in the world.”
