If you’ve ever seen Happy Gilmore, you know the scene where Adam Sandler whoops an alligator’s ass for taking his golf ball… it’s friggin’ hilarious.
Even though Sandler took a bit of an unorthodox route to get his golf ball back, what in the hell do you do when this happens in real life? Nobody in their right mind would actually wrestle an alligator over a $4 golf ball.
But does it even happen in real life? The answer is YES.
According to For The Win, two golfers, playing two different courses, experienced this worst case scenario within a month of each other.
This first happened to David Ksieniewicz at Spring Island Club in Okatie, SC, as his golf ball landed right on top of a nearby alligator.
I mean what kind of shit luck is this? Somebody must’ve put some bad juju on the ball before he played. His daughter Kristine Robinson posted the picture on Facebook, and captioned:
“Shot of the day! Under rule 16.1, which addresses ‘abnormal course conditions,’ the player is ‘entitled to take relief with no penalty.'”
Well thank God…
I know golf is a brutal game and all, but that would be cold blooded if the rules of golf actually made you hit it off the alligator.
Ironically enough, Ron Ritchie was playing golf two days last month at the Shipyard Golf Course on Hilton Head Island, SC, when the exact same thing happened to him.
He had this to say in an interview with Herald Online:
“We were rolling on the ground laughing. I lost 25 feet on my shot because I wanted to get away from the 12-foot alligator.”
Sheesh, as a fellow South Carolinian and golfer, this is terrifying. It sounds like our state is cursed. Then again, I guess it’s a blessing that I don’t live on the coast, because if that happened to me, I would have just given up… done for the day.
It ain’t worth it.
And in case you haven’t seen the alligator scene from Happy Gilmore, let me provide some comedic relief real quick:
