Golf is a beautiful game, played on open spaces full of nature’s splendor. We can see this throughout the Cape Region's courses.

For several years, Kings Creek Country Club played host to a bald eagle family, nestled high in the trees between two fairways.

I took one of my favorite photographs at Rehoboth Beach Country Club, of a blue heron lifting itself gracefully off a pond on the eleventh hole.

Notwithstanding the visual delights to be seen while playing golf, not everyone is quite so enamored of the flora and fauna around them as they play.

I re-learned this lesson recently, during a recent Tuesday evening league match.

Our team was one-up, with two holes to play as we approached the seventh hole. All four players scrambled a bit off the tee, but three of us managed to put ourselves in position for a birdie or a par as we reached the green. The fourth player, my playing partner’s competition, had a slight chance for bogey, but a double bogey was more realistic.

I wiggled a downhill putt into the hole for a par, and my competitor made his birdie putt.

My playing partner had chipped on to the green. He had about an eight-foot putt for par. If he made it, we would win the hole as a team, and go two-up for the match.

I’m used to his putting style, which could be described as both elaborate and deliberate. It works really well for him, however, so I don’t normally say anything about it. However, it’s not like I will clam up completely, no matter what happens.

On this occasion, I blurted out "Fox!" to the others, as I suddenly noticed a semi-mangy critter traipsing across the seventh fairway toward the woods, not too far from where we stood.

I managed to say that word just as my partner made his stroke.

He stabbed the ball, and it scudded past the hole and came to a stop about six feet past.

He glared.

I apologized.

He made the next putt, and our team went to the last hole only one-up.

The other side won the last hole, and we halved the point.

I now have the distinct impression that my playing partner doesn’t think much of foxes.

Or interruptions.

Congratulations to Ed Brown, this year’s winner of the Rehoboth Beach Country Club Championship. Brown, the former course superintendent for the club, defeated Dan Krausz on the fourth sudden death hole.

The Sussex Pines Country Club 9-Hole Ladies Golf group enjoyed a spirited round Aug. 3. Laraine Kasprous won the first flight in gross, followed by Linda Stigile. Betty DeBoer won the first flight net, with Nancy Knapp taking second.

In the second flight, Carolyn McCarthy won gross on a match of cards, with Ellen Sobieski in second. Linda Lewis won the second flight net, and Carol Farrell took second. Katherine Gordy won the least putts competition, with just 14 for the round.

Terry Johnson is a successful CPA, a partner at Lank, Johnson and Tull, an avid golfer, and the uncle of former Cape Henlopen High School golf standout Mark Johnson, who now works for Terry and his partners.

Terry is also a happy golfer, thanks to his July 24 hole-in-one on Shawnee Country Club’s challenging par-3 fourth hole. Johnson used his four-hybrid for the ace, which makes me think he took a little something off of it in the attempt.

Cape Region golfers with an interest in the statistics of their favorite game should check out a multi-part series running at Slate.com, written by Michael Aggers. Moneygolf: Will new statistics unlock the secrets of golf? provides an in-depth look at the millions of golf shots now being tracked on the PGA Tour can tell us, thanks to the folks at Shotlink. The six-segment series began Aug. 10, and is scheduled to finish Aug. 13.

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