Baby hammerhead shark dropped by osprey falls onto disc golf course

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Golfers are used to birdies and eagles, but a hammerhead shark? That is not par for the course.

According to a Facebook post by the Myrtle Beach City Government, a game of disc golf in the South Carolina resort area was interrupted last month when a baby hammerhead shark fell from the clutches of an osprey at the Splinter City Disc Golf Course.

Jonathan Marlowe, 44, told ABC News that he was with three of his friends at hole No. 11 on the morning of May 18.

The players saw an osprey carrying its latest catch in its mouth, he said.

As the bird flew overhead, it was accosted by two crows, who chased it into a tree. During the chase, the osprey dropped the tiny hammerhead onto the course.

“Some things you really do need pics to believe,” Myrtle Beach Government wrote in its Facebook post.

The tiny shark was approximately a foot long.

“I’ve never even seen a hammerhead in real life, and here’s a baby one on the ground that literally fell out of the sky,” Marlowe said.

The disc golf course is located next to Myrtle Beach State Park, approximately a half mile from the ocean. The golfers considered returning the shark to the water, but ultimately decided against it because they did not believe it would survive the journey, Marlowe said.

Myrtle Beach officials called the shark a bonnethead, which is a species of hammerhead.

Marlowe told Garden & Gun that while it is not unusual to see an osprey carrying prey, he originally thought it was a “random fish.”

“We couldn’t believe it and kept asking ourselves, ‘Did that really just happen?’” Marlowe told the website.