S. Fla. man dies while diving for golf balls

CBS4.com ^ | September 23, 2009 | staff reporter

[fieldmarshaldj]

He’s definitely got a lot of balls.

[SamAdams76]

Wouldn’t the golf balls be waterlogged and unusable?

[JoeProBono]

[Daffynition]

Balls with balata cover, for sure. Then it depends on what kind of a duffer you are ...e.g. if it was me hitting the ball, it wouldn’t matter. If it was my son, PGA pro, it would. ;-)

[paulycy]

Diving for Golf Balls is clearly more dangerous than Bowling for Dollars.

[Daffynition]

[Daffynition]

[paulycy]

It’s worth keeping your balls well polished.

[Thermalseeker]

When I was a teenager I used to dive for golf balls in Lake Lanier off shore of the Lake Lanier Islands golf course. One day I came across a golf club that had been snapped in half and tossed in the lake. I got so tickled I nearly drowned. It’s hard to laugh under water. Maybe that’s what happened to this guy?

[Rum Tum Tugger]

I always assume that any body of water has a gator in it.

Your assumption would be correct. I've been golfing in Florida for over 20 years, and I've never played a course that doesn't have gators -- and I'm not talking about Tim Tebow.

Recently, I hit a shot that wound up on the edge of a pond in some weeds. I went down to the pond and concentrated on finding my ball. Shortly, a hissing sound interrupted my concentration. When I looked to my left, I saw an 8 foot gator about 12 feet away with its mouth wide open. Slowly I backed away to my cart. I was more than happy to get away with only a penalty stroke.

Go to Myakka River State park near Sarasota any day and you'll see fishermen waist deep with gators all around them. A park ranger told me that gators only attack at night, but I'm not going to test that theory for a golf ball.

[JoeProBono]

[N. Theknow]

every abandoned phosphate pit i ever swam or skied in down there had gators...without exception

has that changed?

hell, we had em behind my Coral Gables home in the canal...2 miles from downtown

Well, I usually take visitors to the mall 3 miles from my house to show them the gators, usually 5 or 6, lolling in the ponds around the mall.

Then I take them for a boat ride on the Chain-of-Lakes, which is all through the town of Winter Haven, and we usually see two or three during the trip. And I was cooking out the other day and one came sauntering through the yard moving from one retention pond to another.

Other than that, nope, don't see many of them at all.

[Political Junkie Too]

I grew up in South Florida and new people who did this. My grandfather didn't dive for golfballs; he built himself a special rake and would roll it through the flood canal that separated his back yard from the golf course on the the other side.

They didn't use the balls in games; they sold them to people at driving ranges for practice.

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

Maybe the guy got stuck in the bottom mud or tangled in the weeds?

-PJ

[Daffynition]

[Daffynition]

[JoeProBono]

[lawgirl]

<3 Jesus and Liam

[Daffynition]

[JoeProBono]