Bear Essentials: The Golf Course Bear

Alas I have still not seen a bear and hibernation time is drawing close. Meanwhile, here is another bear anecdote:

 A friend in my exercise class at the YMCA seems to have the most extraordinary good luck - or perhaps she might call it bad luck, seeing bears. Mind you, she has lived in Western New York all her life, so her eyes are probably attuned.
  She's a keen golfer and a few weeks ago she said she was somewhere around the ninth hole at what passes for a Country Club around here, when she saw a bear nosing around. She rushed to call the police but they didn't seem very interested, just asking if he was bothering her.  Driving home she was startled to see a bear - well she can't swear it was the same one - running across the road, hotly pursued by two armed policement.
  The following week she said she was at home alone one night, her husband being out of town and saw a bear in her back garden. Luckily, she said, the back porch door was shut. Around here, the usual reaction to a story like that is, "Have you got a gun in your house?"
  The thing is, my friend lives nearer to the village than we do, which is thrillingly disconcerting. Perhaps, I said to hubby, the bears are getting closer..... But he pointed out that, across the valley from them are wooded hills that stretch all the way into the wilds of Pennsylvania. A bear could trek for miles without seeing a house or a road.