Pigs Ate Golf Balls & Puzzled Players

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 71, 2 December 1949, Page 3

Pigs Ate Golf Balls & Puzzled Players

Some unusual things happen on a golf course, but the experience of one Westport player, Arthur Shields, at the Reefton Club’s tournament is one of the strangest. After playing his ball at the eleventh hole, he saw a number of pigs emerge from a nearby clump of manuka trees, and before he could recover 1 his pill it was nearly swalowed by one of the interlopers. Another pig took a ball during the same afternoon, but was chased and persuaded to drop it. There was much conjecture as to the possibility of such an occurrence in a major tournament, as no provision is made in the rules for interference by pigs with a match, but it was generally considered unlikely that they would be seen on any other course but Reefton.

In his case Shields played another ball and no questions were asked.

N.Z.’s Fossil Penguins New Zealand is one of the only four localities where fossil penguins are found. One specimen is known from Australia and many from Patagonia and from Seymour Island, off the east coast of Graham Land, in West Antarctica. Many of the New Zealand specimens include a number of bones belonging to the same individual which is important, as most of the specimens found in other countries consist of isolated bones. Most of the species were large birds; some must have stood about five feet high.