The slyest thief in town

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - Tom Houk is a golf fanatic. So much so that he built a putting green outside his home. All summer long he works to manicure the green making it smooth for his practice sessions.

It used to be that each day when he finished practicing, he would simply leave his golf balls on the green so they'd be ready for him when he returned.

"He just enjoys it," Sally Houk, Tom's wife, said. "It just gives him something to do when he gets home."

But a few months ago, something odd started happening. When Tom Houk would get up in the morning and go out to his putting green, something was missing: his golf balls.

"I just kind of scratched my head and thought my kids or their buddies had taken the balls or something," Tom Houk said.

He simply got some more golf balls and went about his practice. By the next morning, all of those balls were gone too.

"We figured out they're getting swiped," he said.

Day after day the scenario repeated itself until Houk saw the thief in his driveway.

A hairless fox was standing there with one of his golf balls in his mouth.

"We just couldn't believe it and we thought he just snatched one," Houk said.

The fox had more than one golf ball in mind.

"He doesn't just take one ball," Sally Houk said. "He came back and forth and back and forth until he took all of them."

Tom Houk thinks the fox has taken nearly 100 of his golf balls.

The big question is: what does the fox do with them?

"Foxes are intelligent and curious and chasing golf balls is likely entertaining and fun for them," Jerry Neal, a public information officer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said.

The hairless fox arrives every night near sunset.

While seeing fox in their neighborhood isn't unusual, it is the hairless fox that seems intrigued by the golf balls.

According to the DOW, the hairless fox is actually a red fox that has lost its hair. The hair loss is thought to be caused thyroid problems or genetic diseases.

"Mange can also cause hair loss, however none of the foxes tested in the Steamboat area exhibited any of the main symptoms associated with mange," Neal said.

"It is a funny sight because the fox is really gangly looking," Sally Houk said.