{"id":643402,"date":"2026-06-17T11:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643402\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T11:16:09","slug":"darlington-golfers-shocked-after-ball-lands-near-6ft-snake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/643402\/","title":{"rendered":"Darlington golfers shocked after ball lands near 6ft snake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  On Saturday, June 13, a round at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenorthernecho.co.uk\/sport\/26190768.young-darlington-golfers-blackwell-grange-join-golf-sixes-league\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Blackwell Grange Golf Club<\/a> was interrupted when a ball was teed off into the path of an unlikely visitor on the fifth hole.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Resident PGA pro, Aaron Cox, 40, was leading a group of young golfers around the course when one player&#8217;s ball landed next to a curled-up boa constrictor.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;My juniors heard there was a snake on the fifth hole,&#8221; Aaron, who is from Australia, said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Then one of my juniors hit her tee shot and it lay up against the snake. She didn&#8217;t want to play the next shot!\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It was curled up in the long grass.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Being from Down Under, Aaron has plenty of experience in dealing with reptiles lurking in the rough, saying his games have been interrupted by pythons in the past, and he lept into action.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He called his boss and helped to coax the huge snake safely into a cardboard box after they decided that it would be too heavy to pick up with golf clubs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>The snake caused a hassle on the fifth hole of Blackwell Grange Golf Course. (Image: AARON COX)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;It&#8217;s not often you get a snake at a course in the UK,&#8221; he said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  After it was safely removed from the course, the boa was handed into Coast to Coast Exotics, a pet shop specialising in reptiles and exotic pets in Darlington.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A spokesperson for the shop said the snake was doing well, adding: &#8220;The boa has settled in well and ate yesterday and appears to be in good health.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The shop has since put an appeal out on social media to help get the snake back to its owners.\n<\/p>\n<p>  Handling a boa<\/p>\n<p>\n  Boa constrictors are large, non\u2011venomous snakes that kill prey by squeezing rather than by using a bite loaded with venom.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  While many kept as pets are described as docile, they are still strong, muscular animals capable of inflicting a painful bite and causing injury if they feel threatened or are mishandled.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Experts advise people to keep their distance and stay calm if a snake turns up where it shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday, June 13, a round at Blackwell Grange Golf Club was interrupted when a ball was teed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-643402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}