The festive season is typically time for pigs in blankets, but at one British golf club, some oinkers have been creating quite a stir.
Two huge pigs recently made their way onto the course at Lightcliffe Golf Club in Yorkshire, disrupting play and even injuring some golfers who tried to shoo them away.
They first appeared on Sunday, remembers president Philip Marshall, although he tells CNN Sport the club “don’t know where they came from.”
“One of our golfers saw these pigs on the course and tried to shoo them off and he sustained a cut on his leg and had to go to A&E for a shot,” Marshall said. “And they disappeared then, so we thought they’d gone.
“On Tuesday, they reappeared then, and they dug up the 18th green, the first tee and then our head green’s director tried to shoo one of them off and it turned on him and it cut his leg. So he had to go and have a tetanus jab but he’s fine. And he actually had a hole-in-one this (Thursday) morning! So no ill-effects to him at all then.”
Although Marshall describes the injuries as minor cuts, both went to the emergency room as a precaution as they were injuries caused by a wild animal.
‘Obviously dangerous’
Because members of the golf club were unable to corral the pigs themselves, it was a case of containing the damage and waiting for outside help.
Marshall says he called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the local police. The police said coming to collect the pigs wasn’t their jurisdiction and the RSPCA would come and help when they could but they “were very overstretched.”
“What happened was I was there for most of the day until dusk, and we’d managed to lead them to the far corner of the course,” Marshall explains.
“So we got them to the corner of the course and left them there. We couldn’t approach them, we closed the course because they’re obviously dangerous.
“They ended up on the Tuesday night on the side road outside the golf club. They were put in transporters and they were taken away. We don’t know where they’re from or what’s happened to them.”
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Lightcliffe has since reopened to the public and is offering an added bonus to anyone who signs up to play.
“Anybody who books online and comes and plays, we’re offering a free bacon sandwich,” Marshall said.