IT's been...at least 10 years now I guess. Same type of story, worse ending.
About a 100 miles south of my house there was a older guy, 60's or so, playing one weekend. He'd tagged along with three other guys who were playing worse than he was so he decided he'd walk ahead of them.
As it ends up, his wife called the course later that night asking where her husband was. No one had seen him, his car still in the parking lot, etc.
They found his golf pull cart off to the side of one fairway next to some swamp land. No golfer. They decided to put down the gator that lived in that swamp. I want to say head to tail this one was 13 ft., but then again I'm thinking larger.
Anywho, when they killed the gator, cut open the stomach, they found the guy. There were pictures of the gator, belly up, and you could see the guys arm/hand holding a ball retriever.
There's one course I play now that has one on the 8th hole. He's bigger this year, but the point is last year I hit a ball dead in the middle of the fairway but it was about 20 yards from the Gator.
Unplayable.
And, get this. I actually saw a lady pull a shot a few years ago in a ditch/swamp area and her ball landed on top of a gator just below it's head. We looked down in the ditch...gator barely moving...ball sitting on top of it as pretty as one could ask.
Unplayable.