A golfing foursome came upon an unexpected and highly unusual hazard as they approached the 15th hole at Corpus Christi's Oso Beach Municipal Golf Course Wednesday morning. The men -- all in their 60s and 70s -- would later tell police that just as they were preparing to tee off, they were approached by a young man dressed all in black and carrying a duffel bag.
Suddenly the young man dropped the bag and ripped off his shirt, revealing a large tattoo on his torso. He then unzipped the bag and rummaged through it until he produced both a machete and what has been described in two different reports as either a hatchet or a tomahawk. The man brandished both of these weapons at the golfers and yelled "Get off my golf course!"
The nerve of this guy! Oso Beach is a muni...
A ten-minute stand-off ensued, with the 15th Hole Troll squaring off against the men, each of whom cocked back his driver and made ready to tee off on the troll's addled cranium. Finally, the troll took his dark-ages arsenal and fled into a residential neighborhood. The golfers hustled back to their cellphones and called police, but the troll was long gone by the time the cops got there. Nobody got hurt.
This case marks the third fairly high-profile incident involving long-bladed weaponry to hit Corpus Christi in the past five months.
In late March, 41-year-old Robert Salyer was arrested after he allegedly used a samurai sword to slice some of the lip off his stepdaughter's aggravated boyfriend. Salyer told police that the boyfriend was being abusive and he was defending his home, but he was nevertheless charged with aggravated assault.
In another family affair, 58-year-old Andres Gonzales allegedly attacked his son-in-law in their carport with not one but two dull and rusty old machetes. Gonzales's would-be victim and his brothers were able to wrest these ineffective weapons out of his hands and no injuries were reported. Gonzales threatened to come back with a gun but was found by police, arrested and charged with aggravated assault before he could make good on that promise.
Getting back to the golf troll, maybe this is just what the post-Tiger professional golf world needs...Maybe the PGA should stock Augusta National's water hazards with gators, and Pebble Beach's sand traps could be patrolled by venomous, dead-eyed Gila monsters and treacherous sidewinders. Throw a random heavily armed lunatic into each tourney's mix and you'd have Super Bowl ratings for every event.
