Christmas came early for Michael Bernoin, an Atlanta-based real estate developer and avid golfer. He recently had a stolen cowhide wallet returned that he purchased in Montana.
The culprits, seagull scavengers with white feathered arms, webbed feet, and thin beaks, roamed in flocks near Pebble Beach Golf Links, the public golf course at Pebble Beach Resort in Monterey, California.
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Varnuan, 30, was playing there for the first time on Aug. 7 after completing a home renovation project near Carmel earlier this year.
“One of my favorite things about traveling to Carmel is that all of Monterey County is home to some of the best golf courses in the country,” Vernoan said. “There’s Pebble Beach (golf links), Spyglass Hill, Spanish Bay. Personally, I like Carmel Valley Ranch.”
Pebble Beach Golf Links is also where Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade hit his first hole-in-one. Varnuan would never have thought that his belongings would be threatened, and he would never have thought about herring gull seabirds, commonly called seagulls.
“I’m playing really well. I had a great round. The seventh hole is like a famous par three. You know Dwyane Wade hit that hole-in-one,” Vernoan said. “The eighth hole is a long par 4 and you have to lay up, and then there’s a bay so you have to hit the green on your second shot over.”
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Varnuan swung and put the ball over the water, eventually finishing the hole. As he prepares for the 9th hole, his players tell him that there is a seagull in his cart.
Golf is a sport that requires concentration. Silence during the swing is a sign of sportsmanship, so when they were talking during the backswing, Varnuan was understandably “frustrated in a way.”
“I don’t care about seagulls on golf carts,” he said. “You can get whatever you want.”
Little did he know that it was being exploited in a cowhide wallet.
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“When I turned around to go back to the cart, I noticed a seagull standing on the seat with something in its mouth. It was my wallet,” Varnuan said. “And stupidly, if I start chasing a seagull, I end up with a driver in my hand. If I start chasing a seagull, it’s like the seagull falls into the fairway.”
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He added: “I don’t think the seagulls were that stupid either, because they kept looking back at me as if they knew I was chasing them and as if they knew I wanted what was in their mouths.”
As the seagull flew around the bay with a wallet in its beak, other seagulls thought it was food and immediately began flocking to it. After a few seconds it was dropped.
Varnuan and his fellow golfers searched for their wallets, but due to the low temperatures at the water’s edge, they called off their round of golf. “I played terrible the next two holes,” Varnuan said, before setting himself up. The next day, at low tide, we searched for him, but in vain, thinking that he might have been carried away by the tide.
Barnouin never expected to find his wallet again. He canceled his credit and debit cards.
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A few months later, I received mail from a man named Eric Bueno at one of his properties in Carmel.
Bueno is a retired Southern California real estate agent who has spent 10 years traveling. He said he owns several rental properties in Carmel and plans to go there and stay for a while if one of them becomes vacant.
“I stayed for six weeks on this trip, and during my stay I walked a lot, sometimes looking for golf balls at low tide,” Bueno said. “I think I found his wallet and mailed it around October 20th.”
Bueno, 68, wrote a letter that read, “I found your Amex and Visa cards in your wallet. No cash. Would you like me to mail them or send them to the trash?” Then I signed my name and number and signed off.
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“When he contacted me, I took a Ziploc bag with my wallet and golf balls to his friend’s house,” Bueno told USA TODAY Sports.
“I always walk a lot and I’m always looking for golf balls for a few reasons. One is it’s great exercise,” Bueno said. “Secondly, we want to remove golf balls from the ocean, because they pollute the ocean. They get scratched and scratched, and fish eat the plastic.”
He also plans to donate balls to junior golf because “it costs money to play at Pebble Beach.”
“It’s a great golf course. Everyone who plays there usually plays with good golf balls as well. So I often find Titleist Pro V balls, and when I donate them to junior golf, they love the balls.”
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Bueno said he found 1,200 golf balls in three days. He knows where to look because it’s the same place a lot of people get stuck. The same 8th hole where Varnuan chased a seagull before dropping his wallet.
“Everyone threw it overboard on the second shot of No. 8, and I didn’t find his ball, but I found his wallet in the water,” Bueno said. “I think I mailed him his driver’s license, and I thought that was one of the things he wanted most.”
Bueno could certainly understand where Varnuan was coming from. Because the same experience happened to him nearly 25 years ago.
“I’ve played at Pebble Beach many times, and about 20 to 25 years ago, I was playing with my dad and a seagull came down and took my wallet from the golf cart,” Bueno said. “But it landed right next to the cart. He didn’t run away with it. My story wasn’t as interesting as Michael throwing it overboard. But yeah, it hit my wallet too.”
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Barnouin was “absolutely overjoyed” to get his wallet back and said he plans to play at Pebble Beach again, but next time he’ll use his Apple Wallet instead.
But this is a core memory for Varnuan.
“I don’t know if I would have gotten a birdie on the 8th hole, but I remember going into the 9th hole I wasn’t too upset, so I definitely made a par, but I wasn’t expecting a seagull on the 9th hole,” Vernoan said. “People are looking for albatross as birdies. I’m the only guy who’s ever caught a ‘seagull’ at Pebble Beach.”
