Aiming your golf ball at people or animals is unacceptable behavior as the Supernanny likes to say. Pro-Golfer Tripp Isenhour is in trouble for his bad behvaior. He killed a protected hawk with a golf ball while filming an instructional video.
Tripp Isenhour has never gotten this much attention for a single golf shot. Really, he's never gotten this much attention, period. Isenhour said it was a "one-in-a-million" golf shot that killed a protected hawk and that he was only trying to scare the bird he now faces misdemeanor criminal charges for killing.
"It was unfortunate, but there'll be plenty of time for me to tell my story," Isenhour said on the Golf Channel's PODS Championship post-round show Friday, his first interview since news broke that he killed the protected bird Dec. 12.
"It's one of regret and remorse that it happened, because I'm certainly sorry to hurt a migratory bird, or any bird for that matter."
Tripp Isenhour says he didn't mean to hit the hawk with the golf ball. He claims he was just trying to scare the bird away.
"I want to let everyone know there was neither any malice nor deliberate intent whatsoever to hit or harm the hawk. I was trying to simply scare it into flying away."
The Chicago Tribune's golf blog Bunker Mentality quotes a witness who disagrees. Investigators also blame Isenhour according to the AP story.
Investigators said Isenhour killed the hawk because he was upset it was making noise as he tried to film an instructional video. He allegedly first drove in a golf cart toward the bird, then 300 yards away, to hit balls at it. When the hawk later landed within 75 yards, Isenhour's shots got closer until he eventually hit and killed it. The bird fell to the ground bleeding from both nostrils, witnesses told the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Isenhour has been charged with a misdemeanor criminal offense. The maximum penalty for such an offense is 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.
