DES MOINES, Iowa — With a steady wind blowing right at him, Jason Grossman stood on the fifth tee at the Legacy Golf Club on Sunday and surveyed the long par 3. The 28-year-old golfer spotted his target nearly 200 yards away: a flag stick tucked in the back left quadrant of a lightning-fast green.

Because of the length of the hole and the nasty-looking sand bunker guarding the front of the green, the hole is no cakewalk, even for a low-handicapper like Grossman. He pushed his tee shot right, and the ball went out of bounds. Grossman pulled his second shot left, but avoided the trees and managed to escape the hole without ruining his round.

Two summers ago, Adam Fisher found himself on the same tee under different circumstances. Fisher, an 18-year-old high school student at the time, was competing on a team in a charity tournament, and the organizers were offering $10,000 to any player who managed a hole-in-one on the tough fifth hole.

When Fisher and his teammates all hit poor tee shots, they decided to use the one mulligan — golf jargon for a "do-over" — the team purchased for $5 apiece. Fisher's second swing sailed through the air, landed on the green and rolled into the hole.

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An ace! Fisher had found the Holy Grail of golf: a hole-in-one.

Or so he thought.

The hole in question

Before he had finished celebrating his accomplishment and new-found riches, organizers of the Iowa Future Farmers of America tournament informed Fisher that he would not be collecting the $10,000 prize because, in their opinion, the use of the mulligan meant he had not scored a hole-in-one.

"I called, like, a lot of people," Fisher told the Des Moines Register. "I called my parents and all my friends. Then I had to call them all back."

On Monday, Fisher is scheduled to appear in the Polk County Courthouse to press his claim that the FFA should have awarded him the $10,000 prize. His argument is that, by selling him a mulligan for $5 and not detailing any conditions for its use, the tournament organizers are bound by their promise to pay out on a hole-in-one.

If that were all jurors on the civil case would have to consider, the case might not have gotten to trial. The FFA's defense is that Fisher and other competitors were bound by the terms of the tournament insurance policy that protected the organizers in case someone won the prize. The insurance company is not a party to the suit.

The simple fact, FFA's lawyer told the Register, is that two shots were hit by one golfer.

"If you have a mulligan and you use a mulligan to score a hole-in-one, you didn't score a hole-in-one, did you?" Ed Skinner, the FFA lawyer, was quoted as saying. "That's going to be the issue."

As Jason Grossman negotiated the same hole Sunday, he smiled as he recalled his two holes-in-one since beginning to play as a kid. The first came at age 14, when a ball that barely rose to the height of his knees sliced hard into a flag stick and dropped in.

Even with a mulligan, Fisher's achievement is worthy of applause, but perhaps not $10,000, Grossman said.

"As a golfer, I think it is wrong," he said. "You don't see PGA tour professionals take a mulligan. They take their lumps and move on."

The trial is being streamed on Court TV Extra.