The first exciting golf game in recorded history took place Monday at the San Juan Hills Golf Club in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. That’s in lovely Orange County, the place that brought the world Richard Nixon, No Doubt, and, most recently, a two-foot-long live leopard shark that fell from the sky and landed near the 12th tee box, presumably alarming the guys who were standing around getting old in weird, colorful pants.
In case you are wondering what a tee box is, it’s the place where you hit your first ball. Which might lead you to wonder if the shark was some kind of a golf fan? But no. The shark was in fact probably dropped by some kind of bird.
Now, I have spent a great deal of time in Orange County and I have to confess I have never seen a bird there that looked big enough to carry two-foot long shark, but that could be because there aren’t many large birds hanging around the Mission Viejo Bed Bath and Beyond. There are other reasons that animals fall from the sky that have to do with crazy weather, but this being a nice day, “dropped by large bird” is indeed the most reasonable explanation for why something awesome like this would happen.
If you watched Caddyshack or Happy Gilmore, you might have the mistaken impression that golf course employees are lazy shiftless uncaring people who just smoke weed and make fun of people. But this shark received only the kindest and most selfless attention from course employees. The course marshall chauffeured the shark to the clubhouse, where it was given a 7 and 7 and a bowl of beef barley soup. No. That’s not true. But they did put the thing in some salt water, and then drive it back to the ocean, where, miraculously, it swam away.