Friends asked why he didn't play it
Seeing a gator on a Florida golf course is no big deal, but hitting one with a golf shot is another thing entirely.
Golfer Greg Irving did just that at the TwinEagles golf course in Naples, Florida, last Wednesday.
His shot found the gator as it lounged in a pond on the course. When Irving and his partner Joe Pack arrived on the scene they found Irving’s ball resting on the gator’s back.
“At first, we didn’t understand why they were shouting, because I knew the ball had landed in the danger zone,” Irving told 7 News Miami. “But when we got closer, we saw it was right in the center of his back. He couldn’t have placed it better even if he tried.”
The scene prompted laughter among those present. “It was something you never expect to see,” Pack said.
Luckily, the gator remained calm
Fortunately, the gator remained calm and did not react, although both golfers joked about how dangerous the situation was. “That place is already a hazard because of the water, but with a [gator], it becomes a double danger,” Irving said, according to the website CiberCubs.
Iriving decided not to retrieve his ball but endured some joking criticism about not playing the ball as its lies.
Irving returned to the same spot the next day for another round, encountering the reptile again, now moving calmly in the nearby water but without his golf ball.
Visitors to the TwinEagles course report that spotting gators is a common occurrence in the area, adding a wild touch to their golfing experience.
In Florida, it is common to see images of alligators wandering through the most unexpected places, from streets to private pools. However, it is less common to capture the moment they feed— that instant when, being carnivores, they devour an animal from their surroundings, CiberCuba reported.
A recent viral video captured a golfer driving his cart at The Quarry Golf Club in Naples, as an alligator swallowed a bunny almost whole.
“Driving to the next hole… and this happens,” wrote a witness of the scene on Instagram.
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Featured image courtesy of Instagram
