Interesting animals seen on your golf outing

Moose @ Moose Run Alaska

Like many folks here, I have seen deer, turkey, coyotes, fox, rattlesnakes, wild hogs, hawks, eagles, alligators, porcupines, rabbits, and other animals while playing golf. Love most all the wildlife I see while out on the course. That said, the uncontrollable volume of gophers and ground squirrels on my home course is one form of wildlife that I am no longer interested in seeing. My inner "Carl Spackler" talking...

Turkey and Eagles are some of the more unusual animals I have seen.

Did play a course where deer where on every hole and would come with in a couple of feet of you.

We had a blue goose that would drop by our Muni in Charleston and would hang with the Canadian geese that live here. Such a beautiful sight. Would stick around for a few weeks then disappear. Have not seen him/her this year.

Whistling Straits is a majestic course and certainly worth the price of admission. In the trees around the 9th and 18th greens (opposite the clubhouse) are some eagle nests. Fairly common sighting but just thought that it made the experience that much more special knowing that such an iconic bird would make their home along that track. Perhaps they were watching TEAM USA in their post Ryder Cup glory.

A herd of elk or red deer stampeded about 30 yards in front of me a number of years ago at the Killarney Golf and Fishing Club in Ireland. They did some damage to the fairway when they turned and headed another direction. The herd numbered about 10-15 and were certainly pretty good size .

I gleaned this from the internet:
They almost became extinct again in the 20th century, with only around 60 left, but have now made a comeback to approximately one thousand where the "native" herd has survived in Killarney National Park.

So on the way to the course this year, Saw a Coyote run across the highway, and while on the course, the same day saw a Bald Eagle (WNY). Funny story a few years back playing with a buddy, His ball is sitting in a fairway, and what looked like a dog came out of the woods and started sniffing his ball. It ended up being a fox and it urinated right on his ball. I made him play it as it lies, there was a splash not only at contact but when his ball went into the pond short of the green

If you don't see a deer at High Meadow Ranch, I think you are banned from returning.

Down here in Florida we get gators, deer, osprey, racoons, turkeys and squirrels. At some courses the squirrels will come in to an empty cart and grab stuff out of it.

One course I used to work at was right next to a preserve so we would get a few eagles including a couple bald eagles. Very cool to watch them dive and catch fish.

I'm not sure how I would react to seeing a mountain lion!

Here in eastern MA, we have plenty of deer, a large black snake (6' or longer, I'm told, although I haven't encountered it!), fox, blue heron, mallard ducks, beavers, plenty of red tail hawks, a fresh water crawfish (I thought it was a baby lobster that some herring gull had dropped!), more than enough Canada geese, and this year I saw a large bird with a dark body but white tail and head. I dashed out of the golf shop and was fairly confident it was the first bald eagle I've ever seen, and some members told me about their encounters in the general area 15 miles north of my locale.

I think every club has an occasional sighting of a bipedal beast 'Temperus tantrumus', too. This 'species' is typified by loud outbursts sometimes including profanity as well displays including throwing objects such as golf clubs!

With the addition of three new lakes on our course it has opened up a lot of new territory for wetland birds. Have a new flock of Roseate Spoonbills which I have never seen on the course before. Such a beautiful pink bird. Larger than a White Ibis, smaller than a Great Blue Heron. We have a large flock of storks hanging around this week. Must be a family, seems to be a lot of juveniles in the bunch. Must be fifty double breasted cormorants fishing our ponds. They seem to be checking out all the ponds as they move south for the winter. The ponds must be well stocked in that an osprey was out fishing today also. Sure we will see our neighboring pair of nesting bald eagles soon. Life is good on our course if you observe your surroundings. There is lots to see and be thankful for. =)

What course is this? I used to live in Mt. Pleasant shortly after Hugo hit, and my work brought me to the area in the early to mid 80s. At the time, I played Patriots Point frequently. Very common to see alligators, and there was a family of foxes that the guys in the cart barn fed.

At a course where I used to be a member, it wasn't unusual to see deer, and more common to see deer tracks on the greens. One morning there were very large tracks on a green. I told my playing partner that that must be the biggest deer in NC. Turned out that a couple cows had escaped from a farm close to the course.

Saw a tiger with his cub last weekend at the PNC Championship in Florida. Pretty impressive. Neither one seemed to be bothered by all the spectators either. Danged near the whole crowd, as well as the media, was more focused on them than the great golf going on around the rest of the course.

Yes, quite true, but the 'cub' seemed to have more than just 'some' game, too!

Seen a hawk grab a raven out of the air, landed and started to feast... Javolinas in Scottsdale and Mr Rattler all over San Diego (including Torrey)!

Being a guy from the midwest, seeing Alligator warning signs still throw me off when playing in Florida... LOL

Had an alligator walk across the fairway on us while walking The Ocean Course on hole number 2. I wasn't paying attention at first and got a little too close for my own liking when I looked up.


I saw a Moose while playing Banff Springs years ago, still one of the coolest wild life interactions on the course.

I have not come across any exotic animals while on a golf course but we did have fun with a kitten on a putting green.
The kitten chased our putts for about 20 minutes while we waited to tee off.

It's been years, but I was playing a course built on a retired landfill in Suburban Chicago . My playing partner hit a great tee shot from a very elevated teebox, and a red fox came dashing out of the woods grabbed the golf ball, and scampered away! We weren't sure how the Rules of Golf would handle something like this, so we decided that he should hit another without penalty. He cold-topped it.

haha I'm sure you have seen your share of gophers too!

I've seen lots of wildlife at my course this season including moose, fox, coyote, deer, bald eagle, great blue heron, weasel, muskrat and even a mink.

Playing TPC Las Vegas, I saw both a coyote and her pups, and the next day at Paiute, a couple of roadrunners. Didn’t see any Amazon packages from ACME though.