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Close-up of the head of the boa constrictor non-venomous snake in the grass
It’s not particularly uncommon to encounter a snake when you’re out on the golf course. However, one man who works as a pro at a club in England got a very unexpected surprise when he came across two boa constrictors lurking in the grass in the span of a week.
The nature of golf means it’s not rare to have encounters with nature over the course of a round, as courses tend to boast plenty of forms of wildlife to the point where the rules of the game account for holes that were dug by an animal, encounters with “dangerous” creatures including (but not necessarily limited to) “venomous snakes, stinging bees, alligators, fire ants, or bears,” and situations where you manage to strike a creature with your ball.
Most golfers who regularly play in the same places are aware of the animals they might encounter and keep their head on a swivel for the ones that have the potential to do some damage if you draw their ire.
It’s safe to assume one man who works at a golf course in England is intimately familiar with the fauna it boasts, but he was treated to quite the discovery that can seemingly be linked to a negligent pet owner.
Two boa constrictors were discovered at a golf course in England in the same week
Blackwell Grange Golf Club has operated in Darlington, England for close to a century. The public course, which is located in the northern part of the country (a little more than an hour north of Leeds), is staffed by PGA pros including Aaron Cox, who oversees its Junior Golf Academy.
According to The Guardian, Cox was giving a lesson to a 12-year-old golfer on the course on June 13th when she hit a shot that ended up landing directly on an animal he had never encountered while making his way around the track: an approximately 10-foot-long boa constrictor that was sitting in the grass.
Adders and grass snakes are the only two species that are commonly found in the wild in the United Kingdom, so it was obviously surprising to come across a boa constrictor, which are only native to Central and South America and some parts of the Caribbean.
Cox told the outlet he wrangled the snake with his club before putting it in a box and taking it to a local reptile store. It turns out that wasn’t the only trip he’d end up making there that week, as he found a second boa of the same length lying near the rough on June 20th.
Unfortunately, both of those snakes died soon after being discovered, as Cox said they were “riddled with disease” and surmised they’d been dumped on the course by someone who’d kept them as a pet. The story also came to the attention of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which urged anyone who may know the identity of the culprit to come forward with information.