Live Shark Found Writhing On Golf Course

You've heard of pool sharks, but golf sharks are an entirely different matter.

Workers at the San Juan Hills golf course in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., were shocked on Monday when they came across a live shark flipping and flapping around the 12th hole tee.

"Our marshalls were doing their rounds and came across the fish writhing on the tee," Melissa McCormack, director of club operations, told The Huffington Post. "It was about two feet long so he put in the back of the golf cart."

Back at the clubhouse, the employees quickly figured out it was a shark, most likely a leopard shark, which are commonly found in bay environments and shallow waters along the West Coast, from as far south as Mazatlan, Mexico northward to Oregon, according to the Capistrano Dispatch newspaper.

As for how it got to the course, McCormack thinks it was meant to be a meal for some predatory bird.

"We're obviously not experts, but there were puncture marks and blood that is consistent with what we would expect those markings to look like," she said.

The course is more than a mile from the nearest ocean and McCormack and crew realized the shark needed to get back there in order to live, NBCSanDiego.com reported.

At first, they dipped the saltwater fish in fresh water, only to realize that might not be the best thing and instead took the shark to Dana Point and dropped it back in the ocean.

"It was still alive," McCormack told HuffPost.