Bad Shot Almost Costs Golfer His Life

A golfer was playing at the Catta Verdera Country Club in Lincoln when a rattle snake bit him, FOX40 reports.

Steven Wiese said the snake didn't even make that infamous "rattling" sound when it happened.

"No sounds, no warnings, it was just 'bam' and the minute he hit me, I knew I had been hit," Wiese told FOX40.

A bad shot off the 11th tee almost cost Wiese his life, as the ball bounced off a tree and into some tall grass behind it.

Wiese got into trouble when he decided to go looking for it.

"Kind of walked around for a couple of minutes and went, 'O.K., let's forget it.' Started to walk back to the cart and bam," Wiese said.

Wiese, a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran, knew not to panic.

"I had the ability to stop and go, 'O.K., what do I need to do here?' So I just started calmly walking back to the cart path and told the gentleman I was with that I had just been bit by a rattlesnake," Wiese said.

Once Wiese was off to the hospital, course manager Jeff Wilson and his staff quickly tracked the culprit to a nearby drainage pipe.

"We used the hose and flushed him out of the drain. We put him in a container and will relocate it to a non-populated area," Wilson said.

David Rosen with Splash Sacramento, a non-profit nature education organization, told FOX40 that as it gets warmer outside, more rattlesnakes will come out, and humans need to be aware.

"Look on the other side of the log before you set your feet down, or before you reach over it. If you're climbing on rocks watch where you place your hands," Rosen said.

Meanwhile Weise says he's taken the experience as a lesson to work on his golf game.

"I suppose it would give me a little more incentive to learn to hit the ball on the fairway ... You can't blame the snake, basically he was telling me to get away from him," Weise said.