There was this one time I was playing golf with my dad and my older brother. We were in the Tampa area. Anyways, there was an older gentleman that also wanted to play, and the Golf course put the 4 of us together. Well, the older golfer was the typical retired Yankee transplant - wore black, knee high, socks, and had plaid patterned shorts, and a white, short sleeved, sports shirt, and one of those old timey type golf hats (that, in and of itself is probably a neat trick of nature, that there was no fashion police around at the time). Anyways, during the course of the game, he had hit his golf ball out into the rough.
Let me clarify something here before I go any further. The "rough" in Florida consists of palmettos, which grow low to the ground and are very, very dense. I am currently doing an image search to illustrate - here are some photos I found:
and:
Now, this particular "rough" surrounded a large lake. So ... when this older gent hit his ball out into the rough, my father, myself and my older brother, naturally thought that the ball was a goner, and that this older feller had enough sense to not walk around in the rough in hopes of retrieving his ball.
We were wrong.
Looking back on it now, I can sort of understand why he went looking for his ball. First and foremost, he was not familiar with the indigenous wildlife that is in an abundant supply in Florida. Secondly, he was not tanned, and was wearing shorts. This should have indicated he had not been in town long enough to familiarize himself with the dangers of walking through the rough. Thirdly, he appeared to be older than three of us combined, and even at the prodding of my father, he thought he knew what was best, as we were just a bunch of 'dumb southern hillbillies'.
So, he entered the rough, even though my father had insisted that he really shouldn't be doing that. My dad, after seeing him rummage around in the rough, started to move towards me and my brother, protectively and instinctively, in case he had to protect us from witnessing something horrific. There was no convincing this older gent, whom appeared to know better than us, that he didn't know what he was doing, or the danger he was exposing himself to.
Well, the weirdest act of nature I had ever seen, was watching that old man run like hell out of the rough while screeching a horrible guttural squeal of pure terror. He not only lost complete interest in finding his golf ball, he also lost his club when he tried to beat the alligator that attempted to feast on his pasty white legs. He didn't see the python (most yankees don't ever see them - even when you point right at them - they see a log) that he tripped over on his way out of the rough. We decided not to tell him.
My dad is not the type of person to say "I told you so" - he is a southern gentleman. We were more worried about this guy having a heart attack than finishing the rest of the game. But ... I gotta hand it to that old codger, he was tough. After he calmed down a bit, he decided the game wasn't over and we played on.