If you have visited a golf course recently, you have probably had a run in or 5 with the most annoying creature on the course, and I’m not talking about the loud white trash guy in a wife beater(if he is wearing a shirt). I’m talking about the crap factories called canadian geese. While legally protecting them was necessary to save the species, it also allowed the geese to lose the natural fear of humans that is needed for wild animals and humans to live together. They see a human and either run or stay a safe distance away, and we humans marvel about their beauty and regalness while snapping pictures. Everyone’s happy. Remove that fear and you have today’s golf course in illinois, large gaggles saunter down the fairways, lounge on the greens, and use the course as one gigantic outhouse. Golfers have to deal with not only dodging nasty white and green land mines but also with a territorially 15 bound bird that hisses like a cat instead of running and has a beak that looks like something i don’t want to be bit with. This is not a public course problem as what you are about to read happened at the country club, which makes it even funnier.
Recently I bought a push cart and have begun walking instead of riding in a cart, which i love to do alot, but it also makes you learn how to do the turd dance, a peppy little jig which steps require you hop around geese crap alternating between the left and right foot while steering your push cart’s 3 wheels around the same piles. So im on hole 12 i think, i’ve already busted out quite a few turd dances, and almost kneeled right into a a group of droppings while trying to read the green for a putt. I hit my drive just past a group of geese and began walking to my ball, i reach the geese and as usual they slowly move out of the way and begin honking and hissing at me. Normally I just quack at them like a duck, don’t know why other than it makes me giggle, so after quacking i get the genius idea to hiss back at the big male, and for some reason the part of the brain that says “ummm that’s not a good idea” went quiet and i hissed back. It was a perfect imitation of him too. You could see an immediate change in the goose, he kinda shook like he was surprised or startled then his whole demeanor changed to “pissed off”. He lowered his head, spread his wings and starting advancing towards me hissing even louder. I went from giggly, to almost joining them in using that fairway as a restroom in a heartbeat. I spun my push cart around to act as a shield and was walking backwards stammering out an apology to the goose trying to figure out which club would be the best club to use to make a short lob shot with a goose. Lucky for me, i think he was lazy, and i was able to get far enough away that he didn’t want to follow. This being the country club, the side of the course i was on is lined with houses, so anyone looking at the back windows or out on their patios, got a front row seat for this and are probably still laughing at me over it. I know if i lived along that hole, one of my pastimes would be watching scenes like this play out on a daily basis. So the next time you are on the course, fight that urge you have to answer an animal in it’s native tongue.