Seagull helps Swedish golfer score a birdie

LAHTI, Finland: An amateur Swedish golfer experienced the thrill of scoring a birdie thanks to a helpful seagull during a recent round of golf in Spain. After hitting her tee shot at the 13th hole of an unnamed Spanish course, Annette Wephton told Swedish Radio on Thursday she thought her ball had rolled into an adjacent pond. As Wephton approached the green, she saw a large seagull on the fringe with a ball in its beak. “It flew off with the ball but made a circle and dropped the ball onto the green, so I just went for it,” she told Swedish Radio. When Wephton played the ball from its new lie, her putt rolled into the hole for a birdie — one stroke under par for the hole. Wephton said she believed she played the ball correctly. Under the rules of golf, however, a player should return the ball as close as possible to its original lie — before its course was disturbed — and play from there. — dpa