Myakka is one golf course in Florida where the gators are given a wide berth on the course, and that’s because they were there first. Myakka has been in business 37 years, originally constructed on swamp land, says Dick Huber, a member of the club since 2005. “I’m just a little guy, but it’s kind of fun to see the exposure we’re getting here,” Huber told ESPN.com on Wednesday.
The Myakka Golf Club is a semi-private member-owned club in Sarasota County in Florida’s Southwest Coast. It features a unique 27-hole course featuring lush contoured fairways and strategically placed bunkers. From the very start, the area the club choose to built their golf course was special. Besides alligators, the Audubon Society was able to identify over 157 different species of birds.
The club’s general manager, Mickie Zada, doesn’t know why the pictures posted to the club’s Facebook page created such a big sensation. Members are encouraged to take pictures of the wildlife and post them to the club’s page, and Zada says there has actually been pictures of bigger gators posted.
Many people on the Internet have been asking if the pictures were Photoshopped. Zada thought the idea was sort of funny, because this alligator wasn’t even the biggest one on the course. “We think this gator is 12 or 13 feet,” she said. “We had one that lived here for years, his name was Big George, who was probably 15 feet long.”
Zada also has some good advice for non-Floridian golfers who want to know what to do if they encounter an alligator on the golf course. The first tip is, just stay away. “Our rule is, if your golf ball goes near a gator, leave it. Take another golf ball, move a safe distance from the gator, no closer to the green and you don’t get a penalty,” she said.
