A pro golfer was waiting for his Masters invite. A real estate agent who shares his name got it instead.
Scott Stallings, a Georgia realtor, accidentally received an invitation to the Masters tournament instead of pro golfer Scott Stallings. The pair sorted things out over Instagram.
Scott Stallings, a real estate agent from Georgia, and his wife, Jenny, were caught off guard when a large envelope waited outside of their St. Simons Island vacation home ahead of their arrival for New Year’s Eve. Inside was another envelope, green with gold embossed details — an invitation to the Masters golf tournament. For a second, the couple thought they had finally received tickets to attend — they enter the ticket lottery every year. Then they read closer: It was an invitation to play.
They were confused. Scott was a casual golfer at best. Finally, they put it all together.
About 500 miles away in Knoxville, Tenn., Scott Stallings, the pro golfer, was checking his mailbox multiple times daily — anxiously awaiting his invitation to the prestigious annual competition. Invitations for the April tournament are sent to eligible players the week before Christmas and the golfer knew he had qualified.
That’s when the pro golfer checked his Instagram DMs and saw a message from the other Stallings.
“Hi Scott. My name is Scott Stallings as well … I received a FedEx today from the Masters inviting me to play,” read a message penned by the real estate agent’s wife on his behalf. “I’m 100[%] sure this is NOT for me. I play, but wow! Nowhere near your level.”
Stallings the real estate agent surmised that the confusion might have stemmed from a combination of their names, their wives’ names (both Jennifer), and their locations: Stallings the golfer used to have a sports management company on St. Simons Island located near the other Stallings’ vacation condo.
“The envelope went to his old office, right around the corner,” Stallings the real estate agent told The Inquirer in a phone interview. “UPS redirected it.”
Still, it took photos for the real estate agent to prove to the pro golfer he was legit.
The tale of two Stallings goes viral
Ever since Stallings knew there was a pro golfer with his name out there, he considered himself a fan.
“Whenever he’s in a tournament, I try to take a snapshot of his stats on the TV and repost it on my Facebook,” he said. “It was just my own little thing. I’ve been doing it for years.”
As noted by The Athletic, “it’s unclear if any of the other 74 Scott Stallings on Facebook do the same. Like the Scott Stallings who works at Walmart in Ada, Okla. Or the one who’s a technician for Raytheon Technologies in Danville, Ala. Or the ones in Dunn, N.C., Custer, Ky., or Redlands, Calif.”
But on Monday, the others might have done some Googling.
That’s when Stallings the golfer posted screenshots of the message exchange on his verified social media profiles. He has about 40,000 followers on Instagram and about 54,000 on Twitter.
The floodgates had opened. The Georgia Stallings’ notifications were blowing up.
They documented the invitation’s journey back to the proper Stallings, including a video outside of the UPS Store, attempting to get the envelope into the right hands.
On social media, invested followers told Stallings the golfer to let Stallings the real estate agent caddie for him or gift him tickets.
“Invite the other Scott for a round,” one comment said. “He should’ve showed up,” said another. “Changing my name to Scott Stallings,” a third person wrote.
When asked if he entertained the thought of just keeping the invitation and going himself, the real estate agent joked: “That lasted all of about five minutes and then reality set in. I couldn’t imagine just showing up.”
The golfer, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, promised publicly to make things right with his name sharer.
Both Stallings are headed to the Masters after all
“It’s official!” the real estate agent wrote in an Instagram caption. “We have been invited by Scott Stallings to meet him and his wife Jenny for dinner and attend some of the practice rounds.”
The real estate agent called going to Augusta for the tournament a “bucket list checkmark and then some.”
“We follow golf, definitely the Masters. We’ve always dreamed about going,” he said. “But this is all new territory. It’s all new ground for us.”
Until then, the Georgia couple is getting a kick out of the attention this mix-up has brought.
“We were not expecting this at all,” the real estate agent said. “We sent a DM. It wasn’t our intent to throw anything on social media. It wasn’t until he started it, but I credit him for starting it.”