Fore! I mean hi there! How's it going? Ready for a break? How's a nice refreshing mug of coffee sound? What about a virtual muffin or doughnut? Go on...you know you want one. Say...a long time ago, I took up golf...briefly...very briefly. If I remember correctly, I played a total of 27 holes in my golfing lifetime. No, ibelieve it was 25 because I quit on the 7th hole of my third outing. Then my set of 11 Chi-Chi Rodriguez clubs and Hush Puppy golf shoes remained in the bag for 5 years until I sold them to another leftie. If the following account is anywhere near accurate, I should have stayed with golfing a little longer...
14 years ago, out-of-work thief
Glenn Berger was struck by a crazy idea that would turn out to make him a
millionaire. He decided to dive in lakes across the golf-course rich state of
Florida, looking for lost golf balls. He now fishes out about 1.3 to 1.7
million balls a year, and claims to have amassed a fortune of about $15
million so far!
“I was partially unemployed and
I was stealing golf balls out of a golf course lake where I lived and I
realised that wasn’t the way to make money,” he said. So he started to sell the
balls at a minimum of $1 each – a decision that has paid off handsomely over
the years.
One of the reasons the balls
fetch so much money is the risk that scouring golf course ponds involves.
Berger faces loads of underwater dangers and challenges on a daily basis – he’s
encountered tables, golf carts, lawn mowers, snakes, and the worst of all,
alligators. He always makes sure to look carefully before leaping into a
water hazard, but he still bumps into alligators sometimes. “One time I
felt my arm in an alligator’s mouth,” he says. “I couldn’t see anything, but I
almost flew out of the water. There was no blood, so I think the gator just
mouthed me without biting down.”
“I really don’t like to talk
about alligators but they happen and you learn how to deal with them,” he said.
“Scuba diving is a dangerous sport as it is. People can usually see. I can’t
see. So I have fish, snakes, turtles, and all those fun things running into me
all the time.”
Berger isn’t the only full-time
golf-ball diver in Florida – there are about 100 others in the state. They all
pay a fee of about five cents a ball to work each golf course. Berger revealed
that the most balls are retrieved from public courses, but Florida’s most elite
golf resorts yield a decent number as well. TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville, home
to the PGA Tour headquarters, features a par-3 17th hole, nicknamed ‘the Island
hole’. It sucks down about 100,000 balls a year.
Yeah well, they can stay underwater as far as I'm concerned. Hey...maybe my research assistant could take a diving course. Research is looking for answers, isn't it? Well, looking for golf balls amounts to the same thing. I'd give up a share of the loot and take out a hefty insurance policy just in case.
See ya, eh!
Bob
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