Facing critters on the golf course is just part of the adventure: gators, mosquitoes, clouds of gnats, etc. But the scariest to me are the cicada eating wasps. Look them up:
http://blogs.mcall.com/master_gardeners/2013/08/the-fascinating-cicada-killers.html
If you’ve been in a sand trap in the mid southern or deep southern U.S. you’ve probably seen them and been scared by them. Bodies are massive; come out of nowhere while you’re trying to hit a shot you never practice; the yellow and black bands terrorize you; come at you in at least a pair; and, the huge orange eyes are haunting.
Par 4 #14 at Cedarwood is impossible anyway. It’s slightest uphill, doglegs left and your best drive leaves you at least 190 yards out. Along the left runs a fairway bunker that makes the Sahara Desert look like a kid’s sandbox – 50 yards long with deep faces and in the perfect spot to capture the poor souls that pull it or hook it or try to fly over it.
Enter the wasps! The hotter the weather the worse they swarm. And they move their nests every day. Golfers entering the steep banks look like the guys that walk on red hot coals in their barefeet. Or someone trying to cross 12 lanes of traffic on an interstate.
Steve can blast it. As a lefty his usual ball flight for #14 is unfortunately directly at that sand trap. This day his drive carries long but deep into the bunker face – a fried egg. “Wasps” he mutters.
I’ve never seen a 220 pound guy step so gingerly to the ball. Maybe, just maybe he could see 3 dimples on the ball. It was buried. But no wasps in sight.
Carefully he entered the trap (no small feat for a guy with a bum knee) and crept to the nearly hidden sphere. He studied the proximity and thought it was all clear. With a mighty arc he dislodged the ball and an entire wasp nest! The air exploded with the hideous creatures. Must have been 100. “Get out, get out” I screamed as if Steve was engulfed in flames.
The sand wedge flew 30 feet in the air as Steve flailed and dodged the cloud of insects. He was terrified. But amazingly he wasn’t stung!
Being July Steve was wringing wet and shaking. We finally spotted his wedge in the trap but neither of us wanted to retrieve it. So we left it!
Fairway Follies, Joe Hinson 