Fort Myers businessman uses antique golf club to chase off burglars
Golf clubs come in handy for several uses other than playing too! This is why a Fort Myers business owner grabbed an antique golf club from his shop to chase off burglars.
Ben Whitley, who owns a store by the name of ‘The Swap Shop’ on Pine Ridge Road, Fort Myres in Florida, noticed at 1:00 am that a motion detector had gone off, which could only mean one of two things – either there was someone in the shop or a technical fault.
Assuming that it was the first option, Whitley started looking for something that could serve the purpose of a weapon. The only two things he found were a fire extinguisher and an antique golf club.
Whitley decided to give the club a chance and test his swinging skills.
He later told the press, “I looked for something to grab for protection on my way out the door. What I found was my handy dandy antique golf club. It's the only thing I could find, that or a fire extinguisher.”
When Whitley noticed that burglars were moving in and out of his shop, he called the sheriff and ran outside in his boxers. When the burglars noticed that the owner was armed, they ran towards their runaway car, a black Sedan.
Whitley said, “They were going in and out. The one guy was carrying items to the gate, and handing them to the car, and he was throwing them to the back seat of the car. As he comes back for the other ones, I'm on the phone calling the sheriff's department and then he's coming back for the second load when I come out of the store.”
Whitley tried to warn them and when they showed resistance, he swung his club and attacked their car. Whitley said the two burglars had jumped in their car and said, “Go, go, go.” That’s when Whitley jumped into action and smashed his club right through their windshield on the passenger side.
The burglars reversed the car and managed to run away. Police reached the crime scene a few minutes later, but could not trace them.
Whitley incurred a loss of $750 due to the burglary. However, this was not the first time he had encountered an incident of theft. A few weeks ago, someone stole a very expensive eagle from his collection, which forced him to install surveillance cameras.
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