After comical Masters invite mix-up, pro plans thoughtful gesture

Attending the Masters is a big deal for patrons and competitors alike. There’s an annual lottery to give people the chance to buy tickets, and qualified players eagerly anticipate the delivery of their old-school invitations in the mail.

But there is one player in the 2023 Masters field who endured a bit of a kerfuffle earlier this week.

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Scott Stallings, the PGA Tour veteran who punched his ticket to Augusta by qualifying for the 2022 Tour Championship, found he was still awaiting his invitation as the calendar turned to January, when invitations are generally delivered around Christmas.

It didn’t take long for Stallings to receive an answer as to why: His invitation had been delivered via FedEx to another Scott Stallings who calls Georgia home.

The other Stallings sent Tour Stallings a direct message on social media explaining the mix-up, complete with photos of the invitation and an offer to forward it to its rightful recipient.

As the story went viral, jokes ensued, as many users on social media encouraged the other Stallings to simply show up at Augusta National with the invitation in April. But the other Stallings soon posted a video outside of the UPS Store, invitation in hand, announcing his intention to send it back to Tour Stallings.

“My wife made me do it!” his caption read. “You’re Welcome.”

Tour Stallings is onsite at this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, and told the AP that his former management company had an office next door to the other Stallings’ condo, which is how the goof likely happened.

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“Honestly, I thought my wife had it and was doing something for Christmas,” Stallings told the AP. “But then nothing came, and we left two days after Christmas. I didn’t even think about.”

But thanks to Tour Stallings, it sounds like the other Stallings will be heading to Augusta after all.

“We’re going to give him some practice-round tickets and take him to dinner on Monday night for doing the right thing,” Tour Stallings said.

Two class acts, those Stallings!

The 2023 Masters begins on April 6, while the Sentry Tournament of Champions kicks off on Thursday.

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Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.

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