No bears, no traps on city golf course

CLOVIS — There are no goose traps, let alone “bear traps” at Clovis’ Colonial Park golf course.

The topic came up at last week’s Clovis city commission meeting as golfers took their turns before commissioners to complain about conditions at the course.

Weeds were frequently mentioned along with poor turf conditions and “bear traps” on the course.

Commissioner Helen Casaus wanted to know, “What are these bear traps everyone’s talking about? Surely we don’t have bears out there.”

A brief discussion followed and consensus was that the “bear traps” were really large traps intended to catch geese and keep them off the greens.

Nope. That also turned out to be wrong.

“They are not actual traps,” Clovis City Manager Justin Howalt wrote in an email response Monday.

“They are simply a rope around the greens held up by a stake. The rope acts as a barrier and stops the geese from walking onto the green. No geese are actually trapped or caught.”

Howalt said he did not know where the “bear trap” reference originated.