Crocodile kills golfer as he tries to collect balls from Kruger Park Lake

Saturday, 6 December 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A South African golfer has been killed by a crocodile on the course at the country’s biggest game reserve, Kruger National Park. 29-year-old Jacque van der Sandt was with friends retrieving golf balls from a lake when he was taken by the beast and dragged beneath the surface.

A two-hour search for the crocodile and his victim eventually turned up Van der Sandt, who had tooth marks on his front and back. The crocodile was also found, and was killed by park rangers. The victim, the son of a park employee, was at a golf course next to a staff residential area on the world-famous reserve where he had grown up. He was in waist-deep water searching for balls beneath the surface of Lake Panic, a stretch of water created by a dam across a river, at the time of the attack “One guy challenged the other to see who can retrieve the most golf balls,” police officer Oubaas Coetzer told AP. Coetzer added that the victim’s mother works at the park, and his father had done so until his retirement. Van der Sandt was described as a “keen golfer who grew up in the park and who had seen crocodiles in the area in the past.”