Vince Whaley had a nervous moment at the Sanderson Farms Championship. His ball was on the bank of a pond. A 6-foot alligator was 20 feet behind him in the water watching his every move. Whaley turned his back on the gator, calmly played the shot and wound up saving his par. Whaley says he was able to focus on his shot when he turned his back on the gator, and he trusted his caddie to monitor the situation. If the gator moved, Whaley says the plan was to get out of the water.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Vince Whaley stepped into the water to play a shot and a 6-foot spectator with a full set of teeth was watching closely. He still turned his back on the alligator and saved par.
Whaley figures the gator was about 20 feet away in the water when he played his shot from the bank on the par-5 11th hole Sunday in the Sanderson Farms Championship.
He was one shot out of the lead at the time, and yes, he was fully aware of the gator eyeing him, the full head above water.
“Well, thankfully my back was to him so I could focus on the shot for a second,” Whaley said, adding he had “a lot of trust” in his caddie monitoring the situation.
The gator never moved. Whaley splashed out short of the putting surface and got up-and-down for par. He wound up with a 67 and tied for third.
And the plan if the gator had moved?
“The plan was to get the hell out of the water,” he said.
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