Golf is a miserable, fantastic, infuriating, and enlightening game. It can make grown men cry. I would have said grown men and women, but for some reason, it seems that the only people who end up crying after four-putting from eight feet are us guys (and women say we’re the ones who have a hard time expressing our feelings).

In fact, I’ve found that golf has the unique ability to make men act like animals, and to make animals act like … golfers.

Confused? Good. That just means you’re in the proper mindset for the odd tale to follow.

I should have known something was up when my golfing buddy and I stumbled across a small herd of foxes (I know, foxes don’t normally travel in herds, but like I said, this is an odd tale) at Bridgton Highlands Country Club.

These foxes – three medium-sized critters who weren’t noticeably foaming at the mouth, drooling, or looking at our legs like they belonged in a KFC value meal – put on quite a wrestling show on the backside of a green.

Odd. It got odder later in the day.

After pulling a drive to the left edge of one fairway, stowing my club, and hopping into the cart, another guest arrived.

“Hey! Look at that!” I told my golfing buddy. “That red squirrel’s looking at my ball!”

The squirrel looked up at us, grabbed the ball in his mouth, and beat feet for the forest.

Little did he know that Golfing Buddy is not big on wildlife interfering with a round.

He (Golfing Buddy, not the squirrel) dismounted the still-moving cart on the full gallop and gave chase, telling the ball-snatching vermin a) what kind of low-life beast it was (unmentionable in a family newspaper), b) incredibly mean things about its father, mother, and siblings (ditto), and c) what he would do if he caught the offending little ball-hog (also unmentionable).

Whatever he said, it worked.

Moments later, Golfing Buddy emerged from the woods, triumphant, waving my Top-Flite.

“The little (expletive, expletive, expletive) saw me, dropped the ball, and ran up his tree,” Buddy proudly told me.

But that’s not where the tale ends (of course … because if it did, this column wouldn’t reach the bottom of the page).

A few weeks later, Golfing Buddy and I returned to Bridgton.

When we got to the Squirrel Hole, I carefully aimed, fired, and watched my ball soar to a safe spot far away from Ballhog’s domain.

Trouble struck (as it so often does) on my second shot, as I smoked a 5-wood that ignored my instructions and the fact that the hole doglegs, and flew into the woods on the (squirrel-infested) side of the fairway.

But I had a line on my ball. I tromped bravely into the woods. I looked around, and quickly spotted what had to be my wayward Top-Flite. At the bottom of a tree. Right next to four others.

As I glanced around the forest floor, my eyes grew large, as the bounty became apparent.

Everywhere … under every tree, on every pile of moss … were golf balls. There had to be hundreds. I had found Ballhog’s stash.

I approached the first pile of balls like a lineman wading into an all-you-can eat buffet. I would gorge at the Titleist trough.

I WOULD NEVER BUY ANOTHER GOLF BALL!

Then I picked up the first ball I got to. Examined it. And saw that Ballhog had chewed away nearly half the cover. The next ball? Also gnawed. And the next. Some had just a nick. Others were chewed to the core.

Somewhere in this pile of balls was mine. And I’d never find it.

As I trudged back up the hill to the fairway, pockets empty, I knew Ballhog was out there, somewhere.

Laughing.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter. His e-mail address is jholyoke@bangordailynews.net