iStockphoto / LagunaticPhoto
There must be something in the water in Hilton Head, South Carolina because for some reason the alligators there all seem to be the size of dinosaurs. And I say this as a born-and-raised Floridian for whom alligators are an every day part of life… I just don’t see ones nearly as big on a regular basis as this Hilton Head alligator below.
It is unclear which golf course in Hilton Head this was filmed at and I’ve played a decent amount of golf in Hilton Head/Bluffton/Palmetto Bluff but not enough to tell you which one this is based of the 2nd tee box an the golf carts. What I can tell you is this Hilton Head alligator appears to only have 3 feet. Which according to OP is fairly common with the biggest alligators in this area.
The video was initially posted to Reddit’s r/golf but later go picked up by CBS Golf on TikTok. Check it out:
Interestingly, the caption on Reddit reads “mating season on Hilton Head Island never fails to surprise me” which would suggest this video is from last Summer. Alligator mating season on Hilton Head Island typically runs from April to July, give or take a few months, but certainly not in January.
However, sightings of massive alligators throughout the Winter months are still frequent as the biggest gators sit on the bank to soak up the warm rays of the sun. The same is true down here in Florida where I’ve been seeing more alligators when walking my dog than I have at any other time in the past year, probably because we’ve been having back-to-back cold fronts down here.
As for the 3 feet on the alligator, OP says “they roll to get away from another gator which ends up ripping it off” which is a plausible explanation albeit one that doesn’t explain *every* alligator missing a foot. Surely some of them have had run-ins with sharks or traps.
Gators on Hilton Head are no joke though. This incident happened back in 2023 when an alligator charged after a fisherman who the gator potentially saw as competition for resources:
After that, the alligator was removed from the pond.