Thanks for the response!! What about the pay? What's the average year salary that golf courses will pay?
And fun fact--if anyone has dived for golf balls...what's the most interesting thing that you have experienced during your dive?
For the professional golf ball diver, as opposed to the hobbiest, the golf courses don't pay, a recycling firm purchases the balls. The course is paid for the balls recovered from the course, sometimes a percentage of what is found, sometimes cash per ball.
The eight cents a ball to a diver is pretty common unless you happen to own a recovery company and do a huge volume. Then you might squeak out a dime after paying the course. I pay divers seven cents a ball and then pay them a bonus if they get enough to ship on their own.
I recover over half a million balls a year, so I don't consider it a hobby for me. But it is a demanding job and few can handle it full time.
I work in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas in the summer and have been all across the south in the winters - from CA to FL. Currently I am in Florida diving with alligators. I've been nipped by one once, but my worst attacks have been from crabs and snapping turtles, and once a forecaddy in Atlanta chased a bunch of copperheads into the pond with me.
The alligator was probably the most interesting thing and is a long story of me being stupid. Maybe I'll tell it later.
There are a LOT of misconceptions about ball diving. It's not a scam, but some of the get-rich-quick come-ons make it seem like one.
It is NOT necessary to be SCUBA certified to recover golf balls. It can be done with a Brownie third lung since most of the ponds are less than 20 feet deep. Many are barely deep enough to get a tank underwater. It can also be done with what we call "rollers", a device that drags the balls out of the ponds by tractor or golf cart. If someone is going to dive, though, I STRONGLY suggest dive rescue training, advanced open water, and quite a few logged dives. I dove for years and got training and experience as a rescue/recovery diver for law enforcement before I started diving for balls.
There was a diver in Florida that died last month when his regulator became tangled and he drowned, so there is that hazard.
I'll look this thread over and respond to any other questions in a later post.
Oh, BTW, ESPN did a story on golf ball diving recently. Also, there was a special on Animal Planet called "Human Prey" about a guy that got mauled by a 'gator in Tampa a few years ago.