by Josh Lanier

CORNELIUS – The morning before the second round of The Traditions Golf Tournament, Gary Brown spent breakfast being teased by friends for his old SUV – the one he’s driven more than 200,000 miles in.

That changed later that day when he sank a hole in one on the 167-yard fourth hole of the Peninsula Club golf course. That ace, his fourth, landed him a 2012 Ford Mustang.

Brown thought he could shoot the hole in one, but when the ball left his club it didn’t feel perfect.

“I hit it and it landed about a foot from where I thought it should have to go in,” he said. “But then it started to drift back toward the hole … and it made this right turn that no one expected and it just disappeared into the hole.”

Brown, of Charlotte, wasn’t supposed to even play in the tournament. He was invited to play by a friend running the event when some of the teams dropped out only a few days before it began.

Brown picked up his $30,000 black convertible this week from Huntersville Ford. The dealership sponsored another hole-in-one challenge as well as Scott Clark Toyota.

An official at the Huntersville Ford said they’ve sponsored a number of hole-in-one challenges over the years but this is the first time someone has won the car.

Brown said when he realized he’d just won a car, he didn’t think much about it. He was more interested in winning that day’s round of match play.

“Ok, great, I thought,” he said. “We’ve finished three holes and we’re up one on these guys, six more holes to go.”

Tom McCune, his tournament partner and chairman of The Traditions event, was left stunned by the hole in one.

“Gary was calm,” he said. “He was thinking about the holes we had left to play but I was standing there just blown away. I mean, where do you go from there? It was an amazing shot.”

Brown, a Northwestern Mutual Financial representative and Charlotte Christian assistant football coach spends most of his afternoons at a driving range working on his game.

His family likes to joke that he only plays golf on days that start with T.

“That’s today and tomorrow,” he quipped.

Brown said he and his wife, Becki, haven’t discussed where they’ll go in their new sports car, but he expects they’ll hit the road before too long.