Animals on the golf course.

He is one of mine that happened today:

So I hear crackling of my bag of trail mix while I am setting up to hit a shot on the golf course. The crackling keeps going on and I finally turn around to see what is going on and this squirrel is sitting on my golf bag and then takes off with my whole bag of trail mix, spilling it as he it running away.... Lousy bastard, I usually give the little shit almonds when I see him and this is the way he thanks me?

What is your experience?

I once drove a cart about 100 yards with a crow in the driver's side cubby before he flew out and made me damn near crap myself and drive into a pond.  He was stealing my Nip-Chee and didn't fly off when I came back to the cart, and I didn't see him in there.

At a golf course I used to play in Virginia, a groundhog lived on the edge of the driving range. I watched for him during warm-ups. If he came out into the sun and stood on his hind legs and wrinkled his nose at me, I usually broke 90. If the groundhog was absent, I  had a very long day.

Scariest thing ever!

The little 9-hole track I play quite a bit is lousy with prarie dogs.  I've lost several balls down their holes.

had 2 deer cross the fairway in front of me on hole #1 (my 7th hole of the day) on wed the 18th at a scramble tournament i was in at saratoga lake golf course here in NY. i was debating between 8 iron, 9 iron, or 9mm for venison steaks at the turn. lol

I once killed a goose with a golf ball...it took one hell of a bounce off its head and landed in a gaggle of geese.  For whatever reason it was a lot harder that day to scare the geese off the fairway to hit my ball, I would have thought after killing their friend they would have all flown away.  Apparently geese aren't that smart!

I was playing 9 lastnight and I was playing near some houses along the side of the course.  I see this dude running down the edge of the next fairway chasing after his puppy.  I'm thinking "what the hell" then I realize there's a squirrel in front of the dog running for it's life.  Then later on, I see some old retired guy walking his dogs across the fairway, once again I'm thinking "what the **** is going on!"   I didn't have the heart to yell at an old man so I just waited.

One of my home courses has a resident red fox family living in a den behind the 7th green. This past spring they had 4 cubs that would sometimes give you some wonderful entertainment on #8 tee. Very cute.

We also have a pair of red headed woodpeckers that hang out around #9 of my other home course. They are pretty rare around here.

The course I play frequently has some foxes hanging around. One time, on the 18th hole, a playing partner laid up to about 100 yards out from. We were still on top of the hill when we saw a fox come running out of the woods, pick up his ball, and take off with it back into the woods.

Snapping turtles sometimes can be waddling around the 10th fairway when they decide to take a break from the pond.

I once saw a hawk hanging out in the tall rough, hoping for some small rodent to pop up out of a hole.

There's been a heron this year hanging out in the pond of the 10th fairway.

See lots of deer too. Amazingly, they don't ever seem to trample on the greens, although maybe the grounds crew repairs that damage early in the mornings.

We have lots of rabbits and squirrels and a couple of coyotes to keep them in check. We also have a nesting pair of hawks that are on the endangered list. I am surprised some crackpot environmental group hasn't tried to shut us down because of them.

One of the craziest things I have ever seen was at Sanctuary Golf Course in Colorado. The previous night they had a pair of bull elk go at it during the rut on one of the holes. It tore the hole up really, really, bad. Huge holes in the fairway and the green was unplayable. They have such an elk problem there that they have to put road work barrels with blinking lights on the greens to keep them off of them. I am here to tell you an elk can do a bunch of damage to a golf course.

I have a friend who lives on the Yaupon Golf Course in the Austin area and have played that course with him several times.

The course regularly has  white tail deer grazing along the rough and in the fairways and it's very common to hit a tee shot into a herd of deer. However, the deer are so used to it they just meander over to the side of the fairway and let the golfers play through then go back to their grazing.

The usual, squirrels, rabbits, and sometimes a fox.  The craziest thing I've ever saw was about 10yds off the green at #7 my friend was looking for his ball and yells out for me to come over.  There was a group of 5 armadillos battering their head down into the ground (I guess this is how they eat/pull food out) and eating.  We stood there literally for 5 minutes watching them about 3ft away (so close I tapped one on the back with my putter, he didn't budge or run), they were standing on their hind legs looking at us and everything like all was good.  All of a sudden they just DASHED out into the woods, almost like one of them said "OH SHIT HUMANS!".

Any more than 5 minutes and you would be assessed a 2 stroke penalty friend.

i had to hit a shot over a snapping turtle 2' in front of my ball, it was rather large so i decided against trying to shoo it away.

and this:

Saw this one on the course at the house