Read more: Local, Alligator, Golf, Courses, Attacks
Alligators are a common sight on golf courses all over the Grand Strand.
The 13th hole at Dunes Golf and Beach Club is world famous, one of the top 100 holes in the country, according to Sports Illustrated.
Among local golfers, the hole is well known for another reason: gators.
"There's some here must be 12, 14 feet long. And there's some smaller ones, 8 feet. I've seen them all sizes," said golfer Dick Spivey.
The head golf pro says some newcomers think the "beware of alligators" signs are just an inside joke or self-promotion based on the course's gator logo.
But no, this warning is very real.
"We've had upwards of 3,4,5 on a hole at a time, laying on the banks," said Dennis Nicholl Head Golf Pro at Dunes Club.
Most of the time, that's all the gators do, lay on the banks of Singleton Lake or drift by quietly.
No one can recall any golfer anywhere in the area having a problem with a gator.
"Most of it is snakes or some other forms of creatures that get in your way.
But the alligators kind of mind their own business and really don't bother you," Nicholl added.
The golf says in a way, the gators have as much to fear from humans as humans do from the gators. So the key for golfers and gators to get along is for the golfers to just use common sense.Nicholl said, "We warn them, tell them just to stay a safe distance and if they get too close, the gators just kind of slide into the water and swim away."
The gators are so mild-mannered some golfers don't believe they're real.
According to local legend, years ago, an older woman saw an alligator in her path and was convinced it was just a prop. "She walked up and tapped it on the head and when it looked at her, they say you never seen a 70 year old lady run so fast in your life," Nicholl explained.
The moral of this story: take a picture of a gator, from a distance, but don't tap one on its head.
An alligator's bite can produce more than 2,000 pounds of pressure.
