{"id":17715,"date":"2026-10-21T10:15:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/17715\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T10:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:15:39","slug":"gigantic-alligator-spotted-roaming-florida-golf-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/17715\/","title":{"rendered":"Gigantic alligator spotted roaming Florida golf course"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-db924ac1927d41640f7e3ec1d3b82aea@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            You thought Jurassic Park was just a movie?\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-951c04e656469885dc5d1d7d4c054790@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Well, you might be forgiven for thinking dinosaurs still walk the earth after seeing footage of a ginormous alligator roaming on a Florida golf course.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-f6546305eb9e2f53e93ea14ef881426b@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Spotted at Valencia Golf &amp; Country Club in Naples, Florida during tropical storm Eta, the gator was seen prowling a tee box by Tyler Stolting, a professional at the club, on Wednesday.\n    <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">HOLY GATOR\ud83d\udc0a: take a look at this massive gator walking through Valencia Golf Course in Naples. He looks like he belongs in Jurassic park!<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcf8: Tyler Stolting pic.twitter.com\/skr3Du9EBQ<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nicolette Perdomo (@NickiPerdomo) November 12, 2020<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-2c9a58c6508cd93eb73e807be527da9b@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The sheer size of the animal had many on social media questioning whether it was actually real.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-8fc96acea1d8f9e4760be96db8655154@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            However, according to David Steen, the reptile and amphibian research leader of the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, there was \u201cnothing unusual\u201d about the size of the alligator.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-0750842d44837a71cacbde0b38e3e518@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            \u201cIt\u2019s an iconic species and conservation success story. But in short, there\u2019s nothing unusual about this alligator or the video,\u201d he said on Twitter.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-a66f4c6a72990501a0bafdda3d641f98@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            It\u2019s not the first time an alligator has been spotted on the golf course.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-1b5ff2eb4d49d7125701d41ff57632c6@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Visit CNN.com\/sport for more news, features, and videos\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/paragraph-ddee0f74106e974d001164fc98bbf7bb@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            In 2017, American golfer Cody Gribble nudged a slumbering gator off of the fairway and into the water during the opening day of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Florida.\n    <\/p>\n<p>              <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You thought Jurassic Park was just a movie? Well, you might be forgiven for thinking dinosaurs still walk&hellip;","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8479,3386,4752,786,787,66,8483,3120,8484,8485,1688,4774,152],"class_list":["post-17715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-alligators-and-crocodiles","tag-animals","tag-continents-and-regions","tag-florida","tag-florida-golf","tag-golf","tag-life-forms","tag-north-america","tag-reptiles-and-amphibians","tag-southeastern-united-states","tag-sports-and-recreation","tag-the-americas","tag-united-states","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117478380255676041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}