Imagine checking your bank account and seeing an extra thousand dollars or so mysteriously deposited overnight. Now imagine instead of an extra thousand, it was an extra $154,000+, and you have the scenario one Tommy Fleetwood woke up to.
If you follow golf at all you might recognize the name; British pro Tommy Fleetwood is currently ranked 11th in the world and is a trendy pick for this weekend’s PGA Championship at Bellerive in St. Louis. That Tommy Fleetwood is probably used to having large sums show up randomly in his bank account. But there’s actually another golfer named Tommy Fleetwood, this one a caddy in Florida who once tried to make the Senior Tour. And the latter Fleetwood’s account is apparently where the former Fleetwood’s British Open winnings were deposited.
https://twitter.com/GregThornerGolf/status/1027246829283540992
Caddie Fleetwood told Reuters he was trying to get in touch with English world number 11 to put the player’s mind at ease that the money would be refunded.
“It was an honest mistake,” Fleetwood said, sounding dumbfounded that he had suddenly become a focus of media attention.
“My mother called me to say she’s been getting lots of calls from the media.”
The European Tour confirmed the error.
“This was a clerical error which we are resolving and we apologize for the inconvenience caused to both parties,” the European Tour said in a statement.
Caddie Fleetwood received a direct deposit of $154,480.
The more famous Tommy Fleetwood told The Telegraph he hadn’t even noticed, which probably shouldn’t be a surprise since he’s earned more than $4 million in 2018 alone.
The whole thing might sound outlandish, but you might be surprised how easy it is for banks and other institutions to confuse two people with the same name. Having grown up sharing a name with my dad, I can confirm that; I once dropped off a hardware store check at the bank only to realize that rather than depositing it into my checking account, the kindly old teller had instead somehow re-opened a years-old child’s account in my brother’s name that had my dad’s name on it as a signatory.
It took me about an hour to get that sorted out, and I have plenty more stories like that. But it’s still a crazy story considering these men had never met. Maybe the British Fleetwood will slide a few hundred to Florida Fleetwood as a thank-you.
[Reuters]
The RGA must have the Caddies account on file. Also maybe he caddied or played in the Open so they had his account