For most golfers, every shank, hook and slice is agony. But for the people who scavenge the ponds and rough edges of golf courses, the little white balls that land out of play are as good as cash.

At a public golf course in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the nation’s oldest, two middle-aged men were a familiar presence near the fences just beyond the fairways. They would come often to search for errant tee shots, collect as many balls as they could find and clean them up before reselling them in bulk.

On Thursday night, one of those men was found dead in the woods near the course, stabbed 16 times, according to the police. His shirtless body was discovered at around 7 p.m. by a jogger who was running on a nearby trail. As of Friday afternoon, the police were still searching for his partner.

The police said the victim, whom they declined to identify until they could notify his family, had several prior arrests, but they declined to go into detail about the status of the investigation.