There Is a Diver Whose Whole Job Is Golf Balls
By Gus Marchetti, Salvage master. Reviewed by Amanda McCallister, editor.
Commercial Diving Contractors Alabama | Commercial Diving Contractors Alaska October 12, 2011. Ridgewood, New Jersey. The pond on 17 was so green I thought they'd dyed it for St. Patrick's Day. My client, the course superintendent, said he'd lost two aerator heads in there last spring and could I bring them up. We came for the aerator heads. What we found was a whole economy. My diver, Kenny, hadn't been in the water five minutes before he surfaced with more golf balls than I've ever seen in one place. 'Gus, there's thousands down here. The whole bottom is covered in them.' We didn't have a plan for that. We just started bagging. By the time we pulled him out, we had over three thousand balls. The superintendent offered me three cents per ball on the spot. I told him we weren't in the golf ball business. He laughed and said, 'There's a guy who does this full-time. He clears every pond on the county.' That guy, it turns out, makes a living doing exactly what you'd never guess: diving for other people's missed shots.
The Job Isn't Diving. It's Feeling.
You don't see anything. Golf course ponds, especially the ones off the fairway, are the color of used coffee. Algae bloom, silt, tannins from leaves. The first rule is: you're a blind man with a pair of gloves. You walk the bottom in a grid, your hands sweeping within a foot of the mud. A golf ball feels distinct—smooth, round, dimpled—but so do the rocks you'll pick up a hundred times before you learn the difference. Your fingers learn the weight and the give. A ball sits on the mud, sometimes half buried. You push your fingers around it and pop it free, then drop it into the mesh bag you've clipped to your belt. You do this for hours. The bag gets heavy, and when it's too heavy to drag, you run a line up to the surface and they send down an empty one.
A Good Day Is Measured in Bags.
That pond in New Jersey gave up 3,000 balls in half a day. The next one we did gave up 11,000. A full-time golf ball diver works on shares. The course doesn't pay him; he gets to keep the balls. A used ball wholesaler buys them by the thousand. The price depends on grade. The diver gets a percentage, usually 50 to 80 percent of what the wholesaler pays, or the course pays a flat removal fee and the diver gets nothing from the balls. Either way, the money is in volume. And the course benefits: fewer lost balls means faster play, and a cleaner pond for aerators and mowers.
The Gear Is Commercial Grade.
If you're doing this more than once, you don't dive scuba. You use a hookah: a surface air compressor with a long hose feeding a full-face mask with a communication link. No tank limits. You're down for three or four hours on a single shift, and you need to talk to your tender at all times. The wetsuit is a 7mm in most weather; a drysuit if the water drops below 60. Lead weights because you need to stay on the bottom. Thick gloves because you're feeling through broken glass and discarded hooks. And a mesh bag with a release clip, because at the top, the tender unhooks you and sends it down empty. Your best tool is a weighted drag line that you use to mark your grid.
The Water Is the Hard Part.
This isn't reef diving. Golf courses are drenched in fertilizer, algaecides, and fungicides, and the ponds catch every bit of runoff. That means the water chemistry can be nasty. A drysuit is your skin. So is your mouth when your mask leaks. The smart operators do a pre-dive risk assessment for hydrogen sulfide, especially in southern ponds that go anaerobic. You also have geese and ducks and the bacteria that come with them. After every dive, you decon: clean the gear, shower, and treat any open scratch. The unexpected hazards are the ones that will kill you: submerged tree stumps, old cable, and, if you're working Florida or the Gulf Coast, alligators. I've seen more than one pond with a 'no swimming' sign that didn't mention the 10-footer sunning on the bank.
How to Get Into It (If You're Nuts).
First, get a commercial diving certification from a school that's accredited by the Association of Diving Contractors International, or at least a Divemaster with a tough manual mindset. Then build a rig: a small compressor, 100 feet of hookah hose, a full-face mask with comms, a drysuit. You can do a trial pond for a course superintendent: clear a pond for free and let him keep the balls. That shows him you won't wreck his aerator or stir up mud that chokes the weeds. Then negotiate a share split. The business model is simple: you take all the risk, and you take home the balls. You sell them bulk to a wholesaler. You need a truck, a washer, and a place to dry and grade. It's a niche, and it's not for everyone. But for a diver who likes working alone and doesn't mind the dark, it's a living.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many golf balls can a diver collect in a day? Depends on the pond. A good day is 5,000 to 20,000 balls. The real skill isn't picking them up; it's finding where they clump. Is it dangerous? Yes. Zero visibility, entanglement, chemicals, cold, and fatigue. That's why you never dive alone and you use a surface-supplied air system with comms. Do you need a commercial diving license? If you're getting paid, most jurisdictions require a commercial diver qualification. Get the real training, not just a recreational scuba cert.