Attack Of The Canada Geese

On a recent round at Rolling Hills golf club in Lapeer, I watched in horror as two Canada geese executed a feint and flank attack on a golfer on foot.

The geese had built a nest on a causeway between two ponds that led to the tee box for the fifteenth hole. The young man got to the tee by waving his clubs at the geese as he made his way up the path.

On his return, they were waiting for him. One attacked from the front as a distraction, while the other came at him from his blind side. The flanking goose flew straight into his face.

I saw what was happening and grabbed an iron to help, but it was too late. The clubs on the young man’s back threw off his balance and he toppled into the pond on the right.

He managed to extricate himself, and then waved the two off with a club.

Forewarned, I used my MGI Navigator cart on remote to ward them off the path, while throwing some sticks I found under a nearby tree. I am a poor aim, and didn’t manage to hit them, but did get the geese to back off far enough for me to transit.

I escaped unscathed.

Later, I caught up with the young man, and it turned out that the reason he was on foot was that the cart he was driving ran out of gas on the fourteenth. I had passed that cart and wondered why it was sitting empty by the fairway.

The young man said he had called the clubhouse and waited for some time but no one came to rescue him. Assuming he was on his own, he headed out to finish the final five holes on foot.

And thus the fateful moment on the causeway.

As any golfer in Michigan — and I assume the Midwest — knows, Canada Geese are monsters.