'Huge' rattlesnake stuns Florida golfers with ‘unusual’ appearance on course

FoxNews.com ^ | Oct 20, 2018 | Madeline Farber

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Golfers in St. Petersburg, Florida, were shocked when they saw a massive rattlesnake slither across the course.

Logan Ungerer and some friends were golfing at Mangrove Bay Golf Course on Columbus Day when Ungerer “saw what looked like a stick blowing in the wind on the green,” according to Fox 13.

Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t a stick at all — it was a snake.

The creature was likely a diamondback rattlesnake, David Steen, a conservation biologist, told the Tampa Bay Times. Diamondbacks are said to be the largest venomous snake in North America, reaching up to eight feet in length, National Geographic reports.

Steen called the sighting “unusual.”

"Snakes are typically secretive creatures that have nothing to gain from interacting with people, so it is unusual for a snake like this to be found in the open on a golf course," Steen said. "It is likely that the rattlesnake was simply observed while traveling from one forest patch to another."

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[Black Agnes]

snek

[EEGator]

Watching snakes and spiders move...creepy.

[butlerweave]

Ah ,you can play through

[jeffc]

That would make some nice belts.....

[antidemoncrat]

Not to mention rattlesnake meat.

[Monterrosa-24]

My wife berated me for not killing water moccasins that I observed and photographed on one of those rails to trails paths where I do some distance skating (Fall Line Trace in Columbus, GA). It was not the sort of place to pull my airweight Smith and start blazing away.

[aces]

not bad but a baby for the swamp areas of floridA

[Inyo-Mono]

When are people going to learn to hold their phone sideways when shooting video?

[Doogle]

I can see it happening...back in “69” (Thailand)
while driving in the middle the night,
I mistook a king cobra for a piece of fire hose....until it moved away.

[Starstruck]

I’m sorry for all the snake lovers out there, but if I have a bag of clubs, the next foursome will not have a 20’ give me.

[BenLurkin]

I think you are supposed to let those play through.

[Tenacious 1]

That is a well fed rattle snake.

[Bonemaker]

My, how rare...an eastern diamondback in Florida.

[MrEdd]

That one is big enough for a pair of boots.

[Bonemaker]

"when Ungerer “saw what looked like a stick blowing in the wind on the green..." Having spent a lot of time in southern Arizona, any "stick" is a rattlesnake until proven otherwise! This nimrod must have been a northeast transplant...the kind I love to see blithely wandering around rattlesnake country ignorant and oblivious...in shorts and flip flops! Heh, heh😎

[Puppage]

I asked a snake “what’s 2 + 2? “ He said “3”. I knew right then he wasn’t an adder.

I’ll let myself out.

[Big Red Badger]

Rattlers Are Dead when I’m around.

Yummy.

[Bullish]

That’s why when playing golf, you should try to keep it on the fairways.