reptile <\/a>was discovered in long grass beside the fifth hole at Blackwell Grange Golf Club in Darlington, County Durham, on Friday morning. It came just a week after another six-foot boa constrictor was found around 20 yards away in the same area of the course.<\/p>\nBut unlike the first snake, which staff were able to safely coax into a cardboard box, the latest reptile “wasn\u2019t happy at all\u201d and even swiped at staff as they tried to catch it.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0_British-golf-club-finds-second-6ft-boa-constrictor-sparking-pet-dumping-fears.jpg\")
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The first boa constrictor was found on June 13(Image: Blackwell range golf club \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n
Resident PGA professional Aaron Cox, who grew up in Brisbane, Australia, said he initially thought a colleague was “pulling my leg” when he was told another snake had been spotted while he was teaching a junior golf session. The PGA pro-turned snake catcher said: “I’ve seen plenty before, including some very dangerous and venomous ones. At golf clubs back in Australia we’d have signs warning golfers about snake areas. I never thought I’d be talking about needing those signs in County Durham.”<\/p>\n
Describing the most recent encounter, he said: “I would say it was at least six feet long, but it looked bigger than the last one. It looked a lot thicker. The body was about the circumference of my ankle.”<\/p>\n
Aaron said: \u201cHe wasn\u2019t happy at all. He was hissing and upset and had a couple of swipes at me while I was trying to get him into the box. The first one we managed to coax into a box using a golf club, but with this one I had to physically pick it up and put it in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest discovery came after a 12-year-old golfer found the first snake while retrieving her ball during a junior session on June 13. As she approached the rough on the par-four fifth hole, she was shocked to find her ball had come to rest next to the large, curled-up reptile hidden in the long grass.<\/p>\n
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While the reptile is non-venomous, they kill their prey by squeezing or constricting them until they die(Image: Courtesy of Blackwell Grange Gol \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n
Aaron and head professional Peter Raine worked together to safely contain the snake before handing it to a specialist pet shop, where it was later reported to be safe and healthy. Boa constrictors are non-venomous and kill their prey – some as large as pigs and even deer, by squeezing or constricting them until they die before swallowing them whole.<\/p>\n
The reptile is not native to the UK and are usually found in tropical and subtropical parts of the Americas with the two close sightings on the club\u2019s boundary have left the golf club officials baffled. Aaron said: \u201cWe have no clue where they\u2019re coming from. We have a few hunches, but we can\u2019t speculate.<\/p>\n
“There is a lane nearby with a handful of homes and a pond. If somebody is dumping snakes, then that area could be where they\u2019re being left, but we genuinely don\u2019t know. This snake was found about 20 yards from where the other one was discovered, so for all we know it could have been there all week.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt is worrying from an animal welfare point of view. I know snakes aren\u2019t everyone\u2019s favourite animal, but if these are pets then you can\u2019t just dump them. Whatever the reason is, it\u2019s awful. We don\u2019t know that\u2019s what\u2019s happened, but it is a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the unusual discoveries, golfers have continued to play on the course. Aaron said: \u201cMost members aren’t too bothered, but they are a bit wary around the fifth hole now. It\u2019s not a major concern at the moment. If we find a third snake in the same area then it might become more of an issue. I know the manager has spoken about possibly getting the council involved to carry out a search if more turn up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The six-foot boa constrictor is the second of its kind that has been discovered on a UK golf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2721,44,10223],"class_list":["post-25823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-animals","tag-golf","tag-snakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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