Golf Ball Divers

[D_O_H]

Numbers, numbers everywhere.
1 week = 7 days = 168 hours = 10080 minutes...
15000 balls per week? Hmmm... A ball every 40 seconds?

1 ball every 40 seconds for 24 hours a day 7 days a week to get 15k balls. Or, with more reasonable work hours, you'd need to find a ball every 16.8 seconds for 10 straight hours 7 days in a row. I'm notoriously horrible at math, but I think those numbers are right.

Is it just me, or do these figures sound a bit inflated? At a minimum, it definitely does not sound like easy money.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I used to dive for balls. 2500 to 3000/day was doable and I had days which exceeded 4,000 balls (that's 400 lbs of balls). It is hard work and you have to have a clock running in your head, 3 balls is a quarter... I needed to pick up at least 2-3 quarters a minute or I'm moving to the next pond. In a really good spot, I could pick up 700 balls in 30-45 minutes, but this is unusual. I generally burned 2-2.5 tanks in the water per day.

 

[Sam Miller III]

The Coloradoians evidently are terrible golfers, Making you one heck of a ball hawk!
45000 balls lost and retrived part time in 14 days! WOW! No double WOW! WOW! That is about 3,200+ ball recovered per day that is when you work 14 days. At 8 cents per ball that is about $256.00 perday! Tripple WOW WOW WOW=Fantastic!

There are a number of problems associated with ball hawking, number one is the run off into the lakes from all sorts of contaminates; fertilizers, animal fecal matter, decaying substances, all sorts of nasties. Often the natural order is disturbed and the BOD goes haywire giving rise to unusual growths. (You are aware of that - you are a Bio teacher)

And of course there is the libility factor. Most responsible golf courses don't allow or don't want a strange unidenified object in a wet suit on or any where near the course where they could be struck and possibly seriously injuried by a stray golf ball. In Colorado there must be an over abundance of stray golf balls--45,000 every two weeks, but that is only 22,500 per week, or only 3200+ perday.

But then again you can also teach a PADI course "Hawing golf balls" and make untold amounts of M O N E Y!

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I never said it was a great job, although I have heard of people collecting 10,000 balls per day in some courses that have very little diving. I used to collect 3,000 per day from one course EVERY WEEK during the busy season in florida.

 

[thomjinx]

My first scuba diving experience was diving for golf balls as a university student. It was in North Carolina and while I was an experienced swimmer and snorkeler, I was not scuba trained or certified at that time. Just young and immortal. Haha!

Fortunately the ponds/lakes I was diving weren't deep enough to get me into trouble.

I used a wetsuit with a big piece of logging chain tied around my waist for a weight belt. I had a big 5' tall tank that I strapped to a golf cart and 100 feet or so of hose. I got some strange looks cruising the golf course in my black rubber suit.

When I agreed to do this I had images in my head of swimming along in clear water plucking golf balls off of of a nice sandy bottom. Ha! The vis in these ponds was a couple of feet......until I picked up the first ball! That stirred up the muddy bottom and then the vis stopped at the glass in my mask. So, I was groping blind in the muck for golf balls, just knowing I was going to grab a broken bottle or a snapping turtle. That part of NC is too cold for gators, thank goodness!

The most fun I had was surfacing just as some guy in lime green pants was about to make a chip shot.

 

[Currahee Vet]

Yawl feel brave enough to dive FL golf courses?

Back in my younger days when I was a wee lad in middle school, a good buddy and used to pull balls out of a small water hazard on the UF course. There was usually a small gator watching us closely, but not really interested in snacking on us -- could have been 'cause both of us together wouldn't have made much of a meal. Anyway, we used to sell the balls on the adjacent teebox for about a quarter apiece (until the course marshall ran us off.) Once they started keeping an eye on us, we were forced to be more selective in when we poached balls from the pond. Still beat scrounging up Coke bottles for a nickel each.

 

[bikefox]

The Coloradoians evidently are terrible golfers, Making you one heck of a ball hawk!
45000 balls lost and retrived part time in 14 days! WOW! No double WOW! WOW! That is about 3,200+ ball recovered per day that is when you work 14 days. At 8 cents per ball that is about $256.00 perday! Tripple WOW WOW WOW=Fantastic!

There are a number of problems associated with ball hawking, number one is the run off into the lakes from all sorts of contaminates; fertilizers, animal fecal matter, decaying substances, all sorts of nasties. Often the natural order is disturbed and the BOD goes haywire giving rise to unusual growths. (You are aware of that - you are a Bio teacher)

And of course there is the libility factor. Most responsible golf courses don't allow or don't want a strange unidenified object in a wet suit on or any where near the course where they could be struck and possibly seriously injuried by a stray golf ball. In Colorado there must be an over abundance of stray golf balls--45,000 every two weeks, but that is only 22,500 per week, or only 3200+ perday.

But then again you can also teach a PADI course "Hawing golf balls" and make untold amounts of M O N E Y!

I'm not to worried about diving in water that is full if trout and bass. I figure it if were that bad, sportfish would not be living there.

One of the bonuses of diving Colorado right now is there are lots of virgin courses. It is a pretty new venture here so many of the courses I dive have not been dove before. Also, many of the high volume courses do 15K round per year. With 4 golfers per round, that can end up being a lot of balls.

As far as liablity, the company I work for has insurance in case I do damage to the course or cart. We are underwater so we don't really get in way of golfers. If you do, you are doing something wrong!!

As mentioned, this is not a glamorous job. With ten weeks off in the summer it allows me freedom to make a lot of money and work when I want. I would not do this full time or year around, but I know guys that make 80-100K per year in this business.

 

[bikefox]

Thanks Buddy, hope ;you are doing well ! I guess you had a big success in summer with big numbers. The co. didnt want me working colorado by diving other states such as Tennessee and North Carolina but very good numbers lately!

Yes, I did very well this summer. Thanks again for your help. After working with you my numbers almost doubled. Glad your numbers were good as well!!

 

[Diesel298]

All I know is:
1. Lakes eat my golf balls... and I want them back....
2. Trying to carry golf clubs and scuba gear... has got to be hard
3. The only good whole on the course is 19

x2
i do find alot of balls when looking for mine in the woods tho

 

[Diesel298]

i take most of the balls i fing i the woods and in the water to the beach
have a few beers and drive a hunderd or so balls into the water hahahaha