I was a member in the early ‘90s at The Cliffs golf course before it expanded into a plush club. It’s located WNW of Fort Worth and Palo Pinto on Possum Kingdom Lake.
There were signs everywhere warning of rattlers! Lots of rough areas that no one would enter to look for an errant golf ball. One rattler skin 13 ft. long on the wall in the pro shop.
Playing with another couple, we men teed off and the ladies began driving to their tee... then suddenly were backing up. There was a rattler lying across the 5 ft. wide cart path getting warm and hanging over both edges of the path.
On a par 3 green approached over a canyon and with a rock face, one lady with us was lining up her putt when a rattler crawled up onto the green and was only about 4 feet behind her.
The area is full of rattlesnakes. When I was 12-14, my dad and I would spend a week each Summer at a friend’s cabin on a slough of the lake. I’d walk the area with a shotgun and kill 3-4 rattlers a day, when we weren’t out fishin’.
Sorry for the long post, but this just brought back a LOT of memories.
Don’t be sorry...I love personal stories like that. My area of western Wisconsin is extremely rocky and hilly. It’s known to be a good area for rattlesnakes, but they’re almost all exclusively up in the hills. I do like to walk in a state park that’s right on the Mississippi. There are numerous bluffs lining the river. Snakes will come down from the rocks to get water. About ten years ago I was walking a path close to the water’s edge. In the middle of the path was a huge, diamondback rattler. But very dead. (flies buzzing around) How it died, I don’t know. But it still gave me the creeps to step over the carcass. But that’s the only time I’ve ever encountered a rattler-dead or alive despite a lifetime of walking the bluffs in my area.