Meet Our Club Mascot Titleist the Bull

If you’re talking about sports franchises, schools or universities, it’s quite the norm.  But Bulls Bay is certainly rare, if not unique, when it comes to golf clubs in that it has its own mascot.
 
Titleist, an imposing 1,400-pound bull, has been the club’s mascot since Bulls Bay opened in May 2002. Club founder Joe Rice, as much of an equine enthusiast as he is golf lover, purchased the striking Scottlish Highland-Texas Longhorn mix at a horse auction in early 2001. And when the Mike Strantz-designed golf course was completed and Bulls Bay Golf Club opened, it seemed a given that Titleist become the “official” club mascot.
 
Though Titleist lives on a farm near Holly Hill, where he consumes some 50 pounds of hay and 20 pounds of feed daily, the club’s beloved mascot makes several appearances at the club annually.  Each visit coincides with a major golf event – be it a club championship, member-guest or the annual Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate – and no championship is complete until the winner or winners have taken a ceremonial ride on the usually cooperative bovine. 
 
Sitting astride a saddled and bridled Titleist has become as much a championship tradition at Bulls Bay as hoisting a trophy … maybe more so. Yet, the practice is so extraordinary in the golf world that such national publications as Golfweek and Golf Business Magazine have devoted articles to coverage of Bulls Bay and its unique mascot, Titleist.

Beat This, Hollywood Squares - Guy Yocum, Golf Digest

In addition to using novel formats, the best member-guest tournaments feature a novelty event or two to lighten the seriousness of the main competition. Shoot-outs, Calcuttas, hat pools and raffles all are worthy adjuncts. But in terms of originality, nothing we’ve seen transcends the sideshow at Bulls Bay Golf Club in Awendaw, S.C., during its annual member-guest. The star is the club’s mascot, “Titleist,” a Texas longhorn Scottish highland hybrid bull who is brought to the club on special occasions from a nearby farm. “Titleist is kind of like this tournament,” says member John Belicka. “A point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.”

Titleist spends most of the two-day event glaring balefully at passing players from a shady spot well to the right of the 18th fairway. But as the tournament’s conclusion, he’s led to the front of the clubhouse, where he is tethered to a flagpole at the center of a 100-square grid chalked by the tournament staff. The chain is just long enough for the bull to reach the perimeter of the grid.
The contest that ensues is not unlike Super Bowl pools conducted in your neighborhood bar. Individual squares are sold in advance for $50 apiece, and a random drawing determines which square an entrant owns. Once Titleist is in place, the rooting begins. The enormous amount of feed he consumes doesn’t stay in his belly long, and once the journey through his digestive tract is complete, it exits onto the field of play.

The lucky square owner gets half the cash, and the other half goes to Birds of Prey, a nonprofit conservation center that nurses injured birds back to health.