WATCH: Florida man retrieves golf ball off gator’s back

CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WFLA) — A wild video out of Cape Coral, Florida shows a golfer grab his ball off the back of an alligator. The video, originally posted to Facebook, shows an alligator sunbathing by a golf course pond with a golf ball laying on top of its tail.

The golfer decides to drop his ball on the grass rather than play from the unfortunate lie (understandably), but first he has to retrieve the ball. “He’s going to whip you with that tail, dude,” someone off-camera says, but the man manages to pluck the golf ball off the alligator’s tail and run for safety. The video did not show how the ball wound up on the reptile’s tail and it’s unclear if the gator ever even knew it was there, but it definitely felt the ball move as it scurried into the water immediately after.

Alligator encounters are not uncommon on Florida golf courses, even during professional tournaments. In 2017, during the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, golfer Cody Gribble casually gave a sunbathing alligator a tap on the tail, sending it jumping off the fairway and into the water.

In the fall of this year, a hulking 10-foot-long alligator made headlines after it interrupted play at the Duran Golf Club in Melbourne, Florida.

Nicole Latner, the golf course’s events and marketing coordinator, said employees tried to get the big guy off the course but he wasn’t having it.

“Our course is an Audubon certified course, which means we strive to help preserve wildlife on our property,” Latner told sister station WFLA Oct. 29. “We do have a few gators that like to wander, but most of the time, they stay in the water. We had players out on the course and one of our maintenance guys came into the office to let us know that he was out of the water. So we attempted to get him to hop back in, but he was not having it. He was adamant to cross over into a different lake. So slowly we helped encourage him to keep it moving.”