August is coming to end and I just had to tell you the most incredible story. In late June I had a guest from Vernon BC come into the PRO Shop and ask me what was the ruling if a Coyote stole his golf ball. Redstone has enough trees, water, ravines, gullies and hazards and I wondered what this guy was talking about. Was he so desperate to lower his score he must have been making things up. Soon enough it was revealed to me in full colour. I was on the back nine playing hole 10 with a couple buddies. Russ hits a shot just off the short grass and out pops this Coyote. I said, “hey guys that must be the same Coyote that the Vernon guy was talking about.” Before I ended my sentence the little rascal was running toward Russ’s ball. Before we could move it was gone with Russ’s ball. There we were four guys standing there laughing with bewildered looks on our faces. We have had no less than 8 confirmed and witnessed golf ball stealing incidents. Member Dan Tweed and Rob Wasylkiw have named this fella PRO V1 since he seems to have a fondness for quality golf balls. I have heard of Ravens and even Gophers stealing balls but this is just hilarious.
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Caution: This is a wild animal so if you come in contact with him do not attempt to feed and pet him. We prefer to keep old Pro V1 wild and alive.
We were playing golf with a couple from out of town we had been paired with. I had hit my ball into a fairway bunker. As we approached the fairway bunker a squirrel came out of it carrying my ball!! Well, the other woman and I ran after that squirrel, waving our arms and yelling at it trying to get it to drop the ruddy ball. Finally, it headed for a tree and had to drop it at the base of the tree….we "high fived" each other and laughed… then I bent down to pick up my ball…..only, it wasn't my ball – it was a practice ball ….my ball was still right where it landed – in the bunker!! Then we felt sorry for the squirrel and wondered if anyone had noticed us crazy women running after this tiny squirrel waving our arms like mad. What a hoot!!!
That's a good one, at my home course there is a fox that has a den on the 8th hole. A beautiful par 5 along the river, you can go for the green in 2 by carrying a revine and creek or lay up. Now this fox has been here for years and loves to steal balls off the green, so most golfers now choose to lay up with a edge so they can get to the green before the fox does.
Anyway one day we were on the green and the fox decided to leave or shots alone. Well we were putting we heard a racket By our cart and sure enough the fox had gone into the cart and stolen my wallet. Now all the cart have warnings not to leave valuables in the cart because of "the fox"
Years ago we were playing Elmendorf AFB course in Anchorage, Alaska. Hole 17 is a par 3 over a river with a bog on the left of the green. There was a foot bridge in the bog and a red fox lived under the bridge. This ball stealing vixon had a reputation for running out onto the green, snatching balls and heading back to the den. One day, feeling brave, i hit my best ball over the river and onto the green. Suddenly the little red thief darted out of the brush, snagged my ball and dissappeared. Not wanting to give up a ProV I went over to the bridge and found a stash of about 20 balls. Thanking the fox for his contribution to my shag bag i retrieved his stash, including my ball, and took a drop on the green.
Burnaby Mountain Golf Course, it's a sweltering hot summer day -time for a beer a juicy hot dog.Now the snack shack is a favorite hangout for wildlife especially "black crows"- and I'm not counting them either. My golfing part have made their tee shots during this time I walk over grab my beer load up "the dog" ketchup, mustard, onion, relish basically the works.
I mention the condiments specifically because I had heard the "horror" stories of these flying garbage bags.I put my "Dog" and beer on my cart a mistake I assure you.
Anyway I take one bite -being famished I gulp it down and get ready to tee off. Picture I'm in the grip it and rip down swing position when I hear "Hey" get out of there you flying"sh** bag", one of my playing partners chases off one of them away but not before he steals my hotdog- not the bun covered with those condiments. So to add insult to injury, with his scream I duff my tee shot topping it runs 50 yards down the fairway. The result is I now go hungry and the guys are "peeing" themselves laughing.This is a true story-
Some 47 years ago while playing in the Junior's Lobstick Open (Waskasiu Golf Club in SK), I had the unpleasant experience of a thieving wildlife intruder on the 11th hole.
I hit a nice drive down the left side of the fairway, a good shot by design given its slope to the right. The ball carried over the hill out of sight from the tee. My opponent hit one too far left and into the trees. The outcome was looking promising for the hole since we were in a "Match Play" competition! However, conversely we found his, which he chipped out, and I had to return back to the tee for a second drive since my ball could not be found, even though it should have been centre to slightly right of centre fairway. Very bewildering.
A discussion with the Proshop after the game shed some reasonable light on the probability of my lost ball. Turned out there was a vixen (female fox) with a den just off the fairway, and it was suspected for some time to have been "scavenging" golf balls from the fairway, out-of-sight from the tee. To confirm this later in the summer after the pups were gone from the den the course workers dug it up to find 200-250 badly chewed up golf balls. Apparently the pups were teething with an ongoing need for fresh material!
I ended up losing the hole, which was my eventual undoing as I lost the match by a single hole…, going into the trophies no less! To a Junior this was a big deal. But I was granted an EXCUSE…, which I learned at this early age is as important to golf as having the skill to play!!
One morning in July, I was golfing with Ed Cristofoli on number 14 tee. He hit his drive, probably one of the best for him, and past the sand trap duck, to our dismay out trots the pro V coyote….snags Eds ball in his mouth and heads off the fairway towards the bush. As we finally got up to the edge of the fairway, he dropped the ball and headed into the bush. At that point, Ed was not very happy with the coyote and so I asked him what the matter was….'matter, he says, look at the bloody lie he left me'. So out of being a fair sport, I moved it onto the fairway where it had landed in the first place, and he hit a beautiful shot. Since then I am sure pro V is out gathering balls, but he has to gather an awful lot more balls to catch up to me.
I'm a very very average player, so when I have a good shot, I let everyone know.So, one day, I have that really good drive, so h ere I am , jumping up and down until I start yelling :" Drop my ball, drop my ball " and I started running toward a squirrel that had taken my ball, but that thing was way faster than me and ran up a tree, stopped and stared at me while I was still yelling at it until it dropped the ball. I picked it up to realize that it was dented badly all around. I finished the hole with that ball that did not roll very good on the green. And for once I had had a good shot!!
At our coarse there are alot of ravens and if you leave a sandwich or other food groups the ravens will steal it especailly on the 7 th hole. so oneday the boys tided a long string to the sandwich container when the raven snatchedthe sandwich from the cart he started to fly away, but he only got so far, when the string came to the end the raven flung back and did a belly flop into the water by the green, only seconds later shook it off and flew away like crazy.
it was just another beautiful day on the course in spokane WA i had already played 12 holes and was sitting at 2 over par and i approach the 13th tee a 157 yard par 3 over a big pond. so i set up swing away well wouldn't you know it i hooked it left to a little landing area and there was a group of about 6 or 7 geese and i saw them all stand up to the alarm of a ball landing next to there nests. so i walk over and all but 1 goose walks away to avoid me and the one stands up and starts hissing at me and i can see her nest behind her and to my surprise there is my ball and this goose is determined to not let me pass and get my ball. so i don't make her mad i dropped a different ball and played on and once i left her area she goes and sits on her nest and i went back everyday for 4 more days and she still didn't let me have my ball back until the 5th day i get to go and retrieve my ball
We were playing Canyon Lakes in the Tri-cities, we thought we picked a good day, weather was a balmy 55 and the sun was shining. When we arrived at the first par three, from the elevated tee box we could see the green was filled with ducks all huddling around the flag. We laughed and said what do we do and one of the guys got in the cart heading for the green and scare them off. We all hit our ball on or near the green, mine was about five feet from the hole excited as I was the ducks had decided to return to the green again, scare them off, we did and my ball was gone. "Hey maybe they threw in the hole" said my friend only to hear the another voice saying no I think that duck is trying to swallow it. With great difficulty the duck was trying to eat my ball spitting it out and finally managed to swallow my ball. "That's one stroke for a lost ball and you have re-hit" said my very competative buddy. It took us a while to regain our composure eveytime we teed off someone would "quack" like a duck. We relayed the incident to the guys in the club house we laughed all the way home.