Golf Ball Diver: Gator Meant To Kill Me

[flvegan]

Published: April 27, 2008

Updated: 03:36 pm

TAMPA – The alligator had one thing on its mind when it glided from the shadowy depths of a golf course pond where Dwight Monreal was diving for golf balls Saturday afternoon.

It meant to kill and eat him.

"This is the first time I've experienced a hard core, eat your attack," Monreal said.

He never saw the alligator before its jaws clamped his shoulder in a bone-crushing grip, starting a desperate, seven-minute fight as Monreal battled for his life.

"It was the longest seven minutes of my life," Monreal said today from his Port St. Lucie home where he was recovering from a crushed and dislocated shoulder and broken upper arm. He was released from St. Joseph's Hospital after spending the night.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/apr/27/trapper-catches-gator-attacked-man-golf-course/?news-breaking

Here's what got me:

During the 14 years he's earned a living by diving in murky, alligator infested ponds for errant golf balls, Monreal, 62, said he's had plenty of encounters with alligators but they were small nips or tail slashes.

"For golf ball divers, it's not uncommon to be nipped," he said. :wow:

[deucemagnet]

1. Hmmm...encounters with deadly reptiles, or a bag full of Titleists?

I say the large, ill-tempered reptiles can keep the golf balls. :crazy:

[petronius]

2. I've been told that golf ball diving can be pretty lucrative

And if it's true that 'chicks dig scars,' I'd guess that a gator-bite scar would bump you right to the top of the gonna-get-laid scale (second only, perhaps, to a great white scar, or a bite from a grizzly that you then killed with your bare hands).

[Shakespeare]

3. "golf ball diver in Florida" Should be way at the top of any list of dangerous jobs.

I'm thinking it might also be a good indicator for insanity. Golf balls? You risk your life for GOLF BALLS???

[Midlodemocrat]

5. Yeah, that crossed my mind as well. I had no idea it was an actual profession.

[raccoon]

4. Those Florida gators are out of control.

Remember just a few days ago, a woman in Oldsmar, FL, found one in her kitchen?

[underpants]

6. Mike Roooooooowe here Mike Rowe

:bounce:

[TZ]

8. Yep.

I saw that episode where he went golf ball diving and as I recall there WAS a gator swimming around the pond they were diving in...:crazy:

[LeftyMom]

7. Either that guy has some huge brass ones, or he was dropped on his head as a baby.

Maybe both.

[Orsino]

9. When you risk violent death to feed your addiction to golf balls...

...it's time to admit you have a problem.