Loyal Reader and Sometime Guest Golf Blogger Martin sent these photos of a new hazard at his local club in Tennessee.
Martin writes:
This evening before I left the club, I went and played #1 hole, and on the fringe was this little fella. I say little, but the shell was about 18”, and with the tail and head extended when I came up on him, he was easily 30” in length. He was only about 24” from my ball, and he could have swallowed it whole.
I am pretty sure that I could get a free drop here, but I just went and putted fast…. Really fast, and I never took my eye off him.
I’ve seen plenty of snappers in Michigan, but here, they usually stay in the ponds.
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Well, at least he let you play through…
We ran across a snapper at Hickory Creek (MI) whose shell was easily 18 inches from front to back. He/she was moving fairly slowly across the 13th fairway until I felt compelled to taunt it with a stick. The snapper moved fairly quickly at that point. I was not tempted to get any body parts within 4 feet of its head.
Later, I took a friend over to look at this guy, and he had moved off into a street. My buddy was trying to nudge him along, and we were both surprised that this guy could actually jump when provoked. Neither of us were going to put our hands down there, and after some prodding by my buddy (with his foot) we got this fella across the street and hopefully pointed toward his home (a big pond about 100 yards away).
What you can’t see in this picture is that his claws were frightening- at least 1/2 inch in length. In addition to probably easily biting a finger or toe clean off, it looked like he could tear a toe off with those claws.