Longview golf shop owner talks about deer ‘intruder’ in business

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - It’s not every day a deer visits a golf shop, but that is exactly what happened in Longview. And when the deer smashed through a front window of a Longview business, it was caught on camera.

It’s pretty apparent where a deer decided to enter Nip It Golf in Longview near Loop 281 and McCann Road early Wednesday morning, judging by the boarded-up window. When Owner Terry Gebhardt saw the broken window, he immediately called police.

“Had a business next door that called me and said he didn’t know what it was, but he had seen some hair on the window, and he said, ‘Well it may be an animal,’ and so, I pulled up and saw the damage. I said, ‘Well let’s wait on the police before we go in because we don’t know what it is yet.’ I didn’t know if it was still alive,” Gebhardt said.

Well, it was, and Terry shot some video and pictures of first responders dealing with it.

“We followed the trail of blood through the building and found him in the hallway,” Gebhardt said.

Unfortunately, the deer was injured, and a look at the security video shows why. The business next door, High-End Glass and Cigars, caught the deer running across the parking lot, and Terry’s video shows the deer crashing through a window, and then struggling across the floor to come to a stop by the woman’s restroom.

“And then from there, we made sure we took care of the issue correctly,” Gebhardt said.

And that involved a firefighter and officers grabbing the deer to get it out of the hallway. They used a sheet to carry the deer out of the shop. Terry didn’t know exactly why a deer would smash through a window.

“Only thing I could say is maybe it saw its reflection in the window and thought it was coming after another deer,” Gebhardt said.

The glass reflecting the parking lot may have confused the deer as well.

“That’s possible. That’s possible, but I mean it was just running across the parking lot as fast as it could and just did not stop,” Gebhardt said.

Terry felt sorry for the deer having broken a rear leg, there was a positive as well.

“It wasn’t able to go through the place. It would have torn up the place if it would have been fully healthy,” Gebhardt said.

However, it was still a mess. Terry spent the day cleaning up deer blood and shattered glass, but a day late,r golfers were able to take a swing at virtually any course they would like.

“So are you going to start selling venison jerky?” I asked Terry.

“For sure, that’s going to be on the menu. I’m kidding,” Gebhardt said.

Well, thinking about it, it’s not that uncommon to see deer at the golf course.

The deer’s injuries were severe enough that it had to be put down.

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