Epic photos show gator fight at Englewood golf course

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An Englewood resident captured epic photos of two alligators fighting on a golf course.

"You can see little ones. Two feet, five feet. All kinds," said Lynn Sarles.

Sarles is talking about gators. They are as common as golfers getting ready to tee off at the Myakka Pines Golf Club.

On Saturday, Sarles saw the big one.

"I saw just his head sticking up, and he kept getting higher and higher, and finally he pulled himself up. We are all going, 'Oh my goodness. That is the big one,'" said Sarles.

The gator she is referring to is named Goliath and he is a regular at the course in Englewood.

"They usually lay by themselves, but this one I guess was territorial," said Kathy Dee.

As Sarles went to tee up, Goliath crawled out of the water and lumbered toward a second gator who found a spot on the course. But the territory clearly belongs to Goliath, Sarles said.

"Someone said, 'Oh my God. Look at that,' and I looked up and I said, 'Oh, I have to get my camera,'" said Sarles.

Goliath and the smaller gator began wrestling.

"I yelled, 'Pick up my ball. I am done putting,'" she said.

Sarles' attention and her camera were focused on the gator fight as her camera clicked away.

"They were flopping over and biting each other," she said.

The tussle lasted about five minutes and by the time it was finished, Sarles knew she had captured something unusual.

"I said, 'Oh, I have some good ones.' You never know until you start going through them because I was just clicking away randomly," said Sarles.

Sarles and her golf mates watched in awe as Goliath walked away a victor.

"To me, it was just natural. That is what they do. I had never seen it," she said.