Hey Llama...

Thanks to so much to reader Bill for this NBC story on llamas caddying at Sherwood Forest in North Carolina.

Because of their soft, padded feet, llamas do not make marks on the green and actually leave the courses with less damage than golf carts.

This is only one of the characteristics that prompted Sherwood Golf Course manager Brian Lautenschlager and his superintendent, Great Smoky Mountains Greenskeepers Inc. owner Mark English, to bring 11 llamas (with four more on the way) from the latter’s farm to the Brevard, N.C., country club. The animals, all boys ranging from 1 to 4 years, are English’s pets, and a long-held dream to bring them into this unique role has taken off “like wildfire,” Lautenschlager tells PEOPLE Pets.

For the past few months, he and English have trained the llamas to become caddy extraordinaires through a series of acclimation exercises, first allowing them to get used to golf swings, and then to become harnessed with saddles that carry two clubs.

"They go at the speed of a golf cart,” says Lautenschlager, a professional golfer, who feels no hindrance from having a llama caddy vs. a human one. Even better, llamas are what he calls natural “communal pottyers,” meaning they don’t go to the bathroom on the green anytime they feel like it but will rather line up rear to rear and go together in one spot. “It’s the funniest thing,” Lautenschlager says.