JONESBORO, Ark. – Jared Woodard hit the lottery this weekend while playing at the Simmons Red Wolf Classic golf tournament in Jonesboro.
Woodard, an attorney in Jonesboro, was playing in the fundraiser at Jonesboro Country Club which hosts hundreds of talented players in one of the largest golf tournaments in NEA. Every year, a special incentive is added to the most challenging hole, Woodard said. If you make a hole in one on hole eight, you win a new car.
“I get up on the tee box and we’re talking about the car,” Woodard said. “‘Wouldn’t that be crazy to win?’ But this is a hard hole – the hardest hole. It’s 181 yards, I think, and I hit it and in mid-air, on its way down, I said, ‘Coach, I just won a car.'”
Woodard swung the five iron club with precision but he couldn’t have expected the ball to truly land in the hole. Sure enough, Woodard said the ball landed by the hole and seemed to stop. It could not have been any closer.
He went to put his club up and Woodard heard something. He looked down to the green, the area around the hole, and saw several people and cheerleaders “going nuts.”
“I go ‘Huh?'” Woodard said. “They were pointing down at the ground.”
The onlookers, also present to serve as independent witnesses in case the miracle-shot occurred, were shouting “It went in!” Indeed, just as Woodard turned around, the smallest gust of wind, coupled with gravity, and maybe even a little help from the planet’s rotation, brought the golf ball into the hole.
Woodard had just won a brand new, 2016 Buick Encore.
“It was crazy!,” Woodard said. “I just took off running toward the green and didn’t even get into the cart. It was wild, and it was fun.”
However, here is the crazy part of the story. In 1981, while playing a golf tournament, Jared’s father, Randy Woodard, also sunk a hole in one at the Jonesboro Country Club and won a brand new car. That time, it was a Lincoln Continental.
Randy was also playing in the tournament Sunday and just as he finished, heard a commotion he had to check out. When he got to the hole, he found out his son had just pulled off the same lucky shot he had.
“I said, ‘Dad, I just won a car, just like you,'” Woodard said. “He looked at me but then saw everyone going nuts and thought, ‘this is real.’ He could hear it from the club house.”
Jared’s wife Lindsey and their son Brown also came out to celebrate with the family.
“It was neat to have them there,” Woodard said. “It was wild, it really was.”
And while he’s barely old enough to palm the golf ball, in 20 years or so, tournament organizers may watch Brown, at hole eight, with added apprehension.
Photo Sources: Lindsey Woodard, Facebook profile.
Featured Photo: (From the left) Ben Bristow, Jared Woodard, Cody Knight, ASU Coach Blake Anderson
Jared was also 3 same as Brown is today.