Well, these are some ‘thieves’ that no one seemed to mind. After all, when you’re playing golf in a place as beautiful as Colorado, you have to take it as par of the course when random wildlife makes their way onto the fairway.

In what can only be described as being in the right place at the right time, David and Lynn Townsend managed to capture photos four incredibly cute golf ball thieves.  The couple was photographing a golf tournament fundraiser at the Arrowhead Golf Club in Littleton.

Near the 13th hole, was a pair of bobcat kittens who took full advantage of the golf balls that had missed their mark and were now cat toys. “We noticed two little two little animals, kind of scurrying out from the bushes onto the fairway, and they were far enough away you couldn’t really tell what they were,” David said.

Playful bobcat kittens adorably steal golf balls along the fairway of the 13th hole at Littleton’s Arrowhead Golf Club. Photo by David Lynn Photography

“It wasn’t until everybody teed off from the box and then made our way down the fairway that we noticed that they were actually bobcats,” he said. The four bobcat kittens quickly became the couple’s new focus.

“One of them just sat there with it in his mouth and the other one was kind of like grabbing the ball and running over another cat and jumping over him,” David said.

That’s where I got those kind of aerial photos where the one cat was kind of the most active of all of them.”

Arrowhead assistant GM Kenny Windey said that the area surrounding the golf course has a good-sized bobcat population, which is made up of two dens and nine cats. They also noted that in addition to the bobcats, they have two mountain lions, a bear and her two cubs, as well as deer and foxes.

Windey said seeing the animals on the golf course is a common sight. “All these animals are wild, and we do not go out of our way to bother them. This is their home, and we are fortunate to share it with them,” he said. “The interaction with golfers is random and we try to communicate to our guests to let them be and keep a safe distance.”

While the photographers typically film people, David said that he started out in wildlife photography. “That’s always been kind of like the common thread in all my photography is incorporating that part of the environment in whatever I’m doing,” he said.

David said that this was one of his top experiences in photography. “(The bobcats) rank up there for sure, with my favorites,” he said. “I don’t want to say once in a lifetime, but with the amount that they were playing with each other – the shots I was able to get – I might have to say that on this one.”

And in case you were wondering, yes, the U.S. Golf Association just so happens to have rules in place for when wildlife takes your golf ball. Rule 9.6 states:  If it is “known or virtually certain” the ball has been moved by an outside influence such as wildlife, there is no penalty and the player should replace his or her ball at its original spot, or a best estimate of the original spot…”

Source: Denver 7