Retrieving golf ball by hand, in gator pond
 

I'm reminded of this craziness while reading about the child snatched by an alligator at Disney:

Last evening, I was driving south on Morse Boulevard, nearing the roundabout at Mallory CC, and on the golf course to my right two women were in the frizzy grass and muck edge of a pond.

They were not on solid ground......and then I saw a disaster ready to happen. The woman stepped to the very edge of the water, bent over, and stuck her hand in the water to get a golf ball.

I thought surely I was going to witness her falling in.......or a gator attack on her arm and she'd get her hand snapped off or she'd get pulled in.

I do not understand how retrieving a ball can be that important. This was insane.

Maybe you all can reinforce why people should give up a free, found golf ball, or why they should "splurge and spend major money" on another ball by dropping/hitting a new one if it was their ball in the water.

Here's where it happened, around 6-7 p.m. last night:

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ballhunter-jpg

I think folks are told to NOT retrieve balls from the water OR tall grasses. You can't fix stupid!!!

It's crazy. I live on Evan's Prairie, on a pond. A few days ago, a young girl 7 - 8 years old was playing at the edge of the pond. An older woman (assume grandmother) was a good 30 feet away and on the phone. I couldn't stand it, and went out to tell her there are alligators in the pond. The little girl said she told Grandma, but Grandma didn't believe it.

Wonder how Grandma feels this morning.

ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.

Exit question - would it be permissible to retrieve my hand?

Probably a $.25 Topflite they were looking for...

Gator, snake, spiders, etc.

It's amazing what some people think or don't!

Reminds me of someone who buys a 750,000 home and then is fanatical about replacing all the bulbs in the house with LED"S, to save a few pennies.

Go figure!

Yes, that would be my husband!!! Lol. That's why he can afford that 750,000 house. Save a few pennies here & save a few there...

It is the mindset that makes people successful.

This is just frightening!

Good for you for caring enough to say something.

Why would anyone want to retrieve a golf ball from a pond? don't they know once a golf ball hits water it becomes addicted to it and will desperately seek more water (ie its going to go back in a pond):D

On the serious side I do not care much for the phrase "you can't fix stupid" Its demeaning, unfair and unnecessary. There is not one person posting or viewing these pages that hasn't done something stupid. and it certainly wouldn't make me feel better about myself by calling other people stupidly unfixable

Oh Arubagirl and villagerjack I so agree.

Back to the subject, I think it wise to stay away from the edges of ponds and all water in Florida, especially now during mating season of alligators because they are acting irascibly.

We have to remember that alligators transport themselves by walking and running and swimming and are virtually impossible to contain in one place or keep out of watery places here where we live. I can't remember any other horrible event like this at Disney in fifty years. It doesn't happen often but it does happen and our treasured children must be protected at all costs.

So all grandparents of small children file this somewhere. I am so overprotective that I will not allow our adult and gainfully employed grandchildren who drive sensibly to drive alone in our golfcart here in The Villages.

I love being the matriarch.

Commen Sense
 

Saw a guy fishing around with his hand for several seconds in the pond at Volusia hole seven about an hour ago. About a week ago there was four plus foot gator sunning on the shore of that pond!

Common sense is not common.

And there are people who "know the price of everything but the value of nothing" Oscar Wilde

Making money comes easy to some, its their lack of discipline when spending it that's the problem

Well Said

About 30 years ago, visiting the Indian Rocks beach area (near Tampa), a woman was walking her dog on a leash, near a body of water. She heard a noise, and when she turned, she was walking an alligator on the leash, as it had just swallowed her dog. This was in the local paper, and several weeks/months later, a chain link fence was installed to try and prevent future incidents.

I was also in Naples, on the opposite side of a ditch filled with water, the gator was sunning itself on the opposite bank. Before I could move the camera from my chest to my eye the gator was off the bank and it the water, I got a picture of 2 beady eyes looking at me. I never imagined they could move so FAST!

I hope our fellow villagers see this, and take heed, I would really hate to hear of a villager or visitor getting bitten.

All summer, there was a gator hanging out at that pond.

Thank you.:beer3:

Real simple.....This is Florida,,,,,I don't hang around bodies of water in Florida. You never know what all is in them.

I remember several years ago playing golf at a TPC course just outside of Chaing Mai Thailand and being told not to walk in the long grass because of the cobra's. I had rented clubs and shoes, bought a dozen balls, and had played 9 holes. I had to go back in the pro shop and buy more balls for the second 9 as I only had 5 left.

I decided if the cobra's were in the long grass, I would just walk in the fairway and if that ball was in any rough they could keep it. Probably only a story so they could resell golf balls, but I didn't care. Fairway only for me.

Which of the 16 posts?

About 25 years ago, I was undergoing four months of training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. On the weekends, I had been travelling down to Fort Walton Beach to visit and play golf with my daughter and son-in-law. On the golf course we played at Hurlburt Field, there were long winded signs that said, "This body of water is the natural habitat of the American Alligator (Alligator Mississippiensis), an endangered species in parts of Florida. Alligators can be unpredictable and dangerous. Please use extreme caution while near this body of water."
One weekend, I stayed in Biloxi for the weekend and played a little low budget track called Dogwood Hills about ten miles north of town. Early in the back nine, I found myself teeing off uphill to a blind landing zone. My playing partner told me there was a pond over the hill and told me the safe yardage to stay dry. As I crested the hill, I saw my ball abut twenty yards short of the water near a sign. The sign was just an old piece of plank, jagged edges on both ends and nailed to another old piece of wood stuck in the ground. Amateurishly painted on the sign was one word, "Gator!"

Guess which sign I found more effective.

agree

:agree:

Yep...I agree. :thumbup:

In fact, considering that not a single one of us that hasn't done something stupid in our lives at least a few times...the premise of that saying is totally false.

'Fixing stupid,' for the overwhelming majority of people, simply goes by another moniker called...'experience.' :ho:

I agree with your husband.

You know what they say;

Poor people spend like they are rich
And Rich people spend like they're poor.


I have seen this a lot and I believe it.

You know if it doesn't hurt me or my family I just don't care what other people do. NOT MY MONKEYS NOT MY CIRCUS.

Love it!
I agree.

And how about

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear?

And Who's on First?

;)

Pretty soon RickyD is gonna come on and use that big long word that I think means we are changing the subject.

There are several Threads about Gators and snakes here on TOTV. Reaching into the tall grasses can land you in the hospital and "too sick to die". I've seen a golfer who was bitten by a pigmy rattlesnake and he spent the night in Leesburg hospital "too sick to die" his words. Just east of Leesburg in a lake Harris canal a 11-12 year old boy (while visiting his grandparents) was eaten alive by an alligator. This happen about 9-10 years ago---almost too horrible to mention.

We live in Florida. No need to be paranoid about Alligators or snakes but we definitely need to stay out of their habitat. No golf ball is worth going there.

I've got a friend in N.J. who is tighter than a crab's butt with money. He is forced to have his own check when the guys go out for a meal. It's embarrassing breaking a bill down to the penny. We just divide the bill by the number of people because we are friends, almost brothers, so if we were golfing this clown would be the one to risk all to save a few pennies. I'm a mix of Dave Ramsey & Ralph Kramden. It's rough to be cheap. I'd rather be somewhere in the middle.

Warning Signs
 

We all know what happened to the child at Disneyworld. In light of that I think it's a foolish mistake not to post warning signs at every pond, lake, and preserve here. To my knowledge there are no signs at most of them, maybe none of them.

I'm sure The Developer is aware that there are alligators around and that they can travel through the interconnecting water pipes and reappear somewhere else, but there are no warning signs. The potential liability should make them worry.

Sermon over.:pray: