Love stopped playing and cautiously approached the unwanted visitor with his camera phone, unlike golfer Tripp Isenhour who killed a protected hawk that found itself in his way with a golf shot last December.

Isenhour said he was only trying to scare the bird and that it was a “one in a million” shot, but now faces misdemeanour criminal charges for the killing after the incident came to light earlier this month.

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.

The golfer, whose real name is John Henry Isenhour III, said it was foolish for people to believe he could have deliberately hit the bird.

But film crew members who witnessed the killing said “he was just going strangely out of the way to go after it”.