The best prize for “The Tournament of the Century” at Morrilton Country Club’s wasn’t the $1,500 for top flight winners, but rather a 2022 Ford F-150 4X4 Supercrew.
Valued at $53,595, the truck was highlighted on social media by a country club in Morrilton, Arkansas, in the days that led to the weekend tournament.
“Hole-in-one on #10 gets you the keys to this F-150,” the country club said in a Oct. 7 Facebook post. “Thanks to Jay Hodge Ford of Morrilton!”
So when Austin Clagett accomplished that feat, getting a hole-in-one on the 10th hole around 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8, he expected to be the weekend’s big winner. He even took a picture next to the truck with his hole-in-one ball.
Except the country club and car dealership refuse to hand him over the keys. Clagett is now filing suit against both, with his attorney stating he was cheated out of his prize.
Clagett had paid his team’s $375 entry fee for the tournament, his attorney said.
“This is about doing what is right,” Andrew Norwood of Denton & Zachary, PLLC, said in a statement. “Mr. Clagett lived up to his end of the deal when he got the hole-in-one and now Morrilton Country Club and Jay Hodge Ford of Morrilton want to crawfish out of the deal. If they didn’t want to pay up when Mr. Clagett got a hole-in-one, they shouldn’t have offered the deal.”
In a Sept. 13 Facebook post, the country club said the Ford dealership “has given us a truck to give away” at its October tournament.
But in a statement on Facebook on Tuesday, Oct. 11, the dealership said the truck at the golf course was only there for display and the country club promoted it as a prize without their consent.
“While management at the golf course desired for our dealership to provide the truck as a prize for a hole-in-one on the course during the event, we were unable to fulfill this request due to the lead time required to provide insurance for a hole-in-one vehicle,” Jay Hodge Ford of Morrilton said. “This was clearly communicated to Morrilton Country Club management, and the club agreed that the dealership would provide a new truck for display/advertising purposes only.”
Morrilton Country Club has not responded to a request for comment by McClatchy News.
Clagett’s attorney said “it is now clear” that neither the country club nor the Ford dealership intend to give Clagett the truck, according to the lawsuit. They are accused of breaching their contract by not transferring the title to Clagett, his attorney states.
“Injustice can only be avoided” if the title of the F-150 is transferred to Clagett, according to the lawsuit.
Morrilton is about 55 miles northwest of Little Rock.