Sheep don't make the best company. Some experts believe it was lonely shepherds who invented golf. Using their long staffs, they batted around stones or other small, rolling objects to keep them occupied during their long watches.
Fowl Ball: Many flocks of geese have discovered that migrating isn't what it's cracked up to be. They're staying put, “migrating” just a few miles before settling in on parks and golf courses for the winter, living a life of leisure surrounded by water and green fields, not worrying about any hazards beyond the occasional bad slice. Golf course managers have tried a number of solutions from sheep dogs to scarecrows, without that much effect.
At least the geese don't steal the balls. Golfers in Australia report that crows and currawongs (an indigenous black bird) swoop down and steal balls. When one bird's nest was blasted with a water cannon, 40–50 golf balls came raining down.
In 1994, a farmer in Germany sued the owner of a golf course. The farmer had been complaining that errant golfers had been hooking balls into his field for years. After the mysterious death of one cow, a veterinarian discovered a golf ball lodged in its throat. Further investigation revealed that thirty of his cows had developed the habit of swallowing golf balls and that they collectively had a total of 2,000 balls lodged in their stomachs.
At the Talamore Golf Course in Southern Pines, North Carolina, you have the option of renting an old-fashioned golf cart for $20 … or a llama caddy for $100 (free llama T-shirt and hat included).
How's this for a hole-in-one? In 1981, on a par 3 hole at Mountain View (California) Golf Course, amateur Ted Barnhouse, hit a wayward ball over a fence into a cow pasture. The ball bounced off a grazing cow's head and ricocheted off a lawn mower onto the green, where it bounced off the flag and into the hole.
The cow's revenge? A stampeding herd of about fifty cows invaded the eighteenth hole of the 1984 St. Andrews Trophy, menacing several golfers in their path. Cattle-clysm was avoided when the stampede was diverted by officials and golfers shouting and waving 8-irons.
Once while playing in a golf tournament abroad, Sam Snead was attacked by an ostrich. The birdie bit him on the hand, rendering him out of commission for two weeks.
On a golf course in Natal, South Africa, Molly Whitaker was about to hit a shot from a bunker when a monkey leaped from a tree and wrapped his arms around her neck. Her caddie chased it away, and the game continued.