CROMWELL, Conn. — The setting was as serene as a scene can be with tens of thousands of sports fans packed together jockeying for position.

They stood on toes, or tried to get a little higher on the hill to get a look at the pristine 18th green for the climactic putts of the Travelers Championship.

Then six climate protesters from out of state broke through the crowd and the ropes and soon police were all over the green chasing them down, tackling them.

“I mean, I was scared for my life,” Akshay Bhatia, one of the three golfers set to finish the Travelers Championship, told CBS Sports. “I didn’t really know what was happening, four or five people come running out on the green, it was kind of weird but thankfully cops were there and kept us safe.”

The climate protesters were spraying a powdery, chalky substance that marred the TV picture, but didn’t do any damage to the manicured surface. After Tom Kim made his birdie putt to force a playoff, the TPC River Highlands agronomy team was able to blow off the chalk, hardly the toughest task they faced during the week, and play resumed.

“I thought it was a dream for a second,” Kim said. “Like the security guards were tackling people and people were getting arrested, like it’s just, it’s really hard to see nowadays. It kind of felt like it took my mind off of the moment and just kind of realized what was happening and obviously even though those people did something bad, you still don’t want them to get hurt, because obviously the police are trying to protect the players and stuff. I get it, but you still don’t want people to get hurt and I think it just kind of personally just took my mind away from golf a little bit and worried about something else.”

Things were brought under control within a few minutes. Kim and Scheffler, close friends, seemed to joke with each other to calm themselves down, then Kim made his putt to tie the tournament, but bogeyed the first playoff hole to open the way for Scheffler to win his sixth tournament of the year.

Late Sunday, Cromwell police, with help from officers from neighboring towns, identified the protesters as Mark Graham, 55, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Jeffrey Marsar, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., Sayak Mukhopadhyay, 51, of White Plains, N.Y., William Regan, 45, of Washington, D.C., Emily Smith, 35, of Maryland, N.Y., and Lydia Wooley, 25, of Brooklyn, N.Y. Last September, Mukhopadhyay was arrested at the U.S. Open tennis tournament when he glued his feet to the ground at Arthur Ashe Stadium, also in a climate-related protest. All six were charged Sunday with first-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespass and breach of peace, processed and released on a $5,000 bond and are scheduled to appear at Middletown Superior Court on July 1.

Tournament officials would not comment or offer further details on the ongoing investigation of the incident. As for possible changes in security measures for future tournaments, “we look at everything every year,” tournament director Nathan Grube said.

Though the incident deflected some attention, the last of the season’s eight PGA Signature Events, with $20 million in prize money, including $3.6 million to Scheffler, achieved its goals. More than a half dozen of the top golfers in the world were within a shot or two of the top as things came to a head Sunday, before Scheffler and Kim separated themselves to finish 22-under, a shot shy of Keegan Bradley’s course record set in 2023.

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