Florida Golf Course Divers Seek `White Gold,' May Find Snapping Turtles
If you're a duffer or a hacker, Stephen Martinez is making a living from your mistakes. Martinez dives the water hazards on Florida's golf courses to retrieve stray balls, known by divers as ``pearls'' or ``white gold.'' Occasionally, an alligator gets in the way.
In his neoprene dive suit, flippers and mask, Martinez looks out of place among golfers in checkered slacks and spikes on this 90-degree day. He prepares to waddle into the lake that runs the length of the Addison Reserve golf course in Delray Beach. A nightmare for many golfers who hook their shots, the murky lake is a gold mine for divers.
``The golf ball divers probably have the weirdest jobs on golf courses,'' said Dave Youpa, manager of Southern California's Industry Hills course. ``They come in during the day while people are playing their rounds. It's funny because often you just see bubbles in the ponds, and you're like, `What the heck?'''
Many divers are approached with comments like ``Nice golf outfit'' or ``Hey, if you find Titleists, they're all mine,'' said Paul Lovelace, owner of Golf Ball Paul's, a golf ball retrieval and resale company in Kansas City, Missouri.
Lovelace, a former oil-rig diver, has been in the golf ball diving business for 23 years. Martinez, a recreational diver with an interest in marine science, stumbled into his current profession 15 years ago. They say the money is good if you're willing to put up with occupational hazards that include bites from snapping turtles, attacks from alligators and attitudes from territorial otters or beavers.
A snapping turtle punctured the glass of Martinez's mask with its beak a few months ago. ``Without my mask, I would have lost my nose,'' he said. ``I've learned not to touch.''
Divers can earn about 8 cents a ball and usually recover an average of 3,000 to 5,000 a day. Lovelace, who subcontracts with other divers to help retrieve balls on about 250 courses across the U.S. Midwest, expects to sell about 4 million reclaimed balls this year, almost double last year's haul.
Independent divers or contractors like Golf Ball Paul's usually pay courses a fee to get permission to dive in their ponds. In other cases, the courses pay divers by the ball and resell them in their own shops for about half the price they cost new or use them for their driving ranges. A Titleist Pro V1 golf ball, a high-quality model that's popular for its accuracy and control, costs about $4 new. Americans spent $885 million on new golf balls in 2002, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Although golf ball diving can be lucrative, it's a demanding occupation. The job requires five to eight hours spent in zero- visibility waters that are often polluted with fertilizers and littered with sharp clamshells and bottle shards.
``It was hard to get used to not seeing anything,'' Lovelace said. ``The visibility is nil, and that made me feel pretty claustrophobic at first. You are basically just feeling your way around.''
There's another reason the ponds are called water hazards: Sometimes they're inhabited by toothy critters who don't appreciate visitors.
``It's scary when you are grabbing something that isn't a golf ball,'' Lovelace said.
Martinez agrees. Three minutes into a dive at the Links of Boynton Beach in Florida last April, he felt a tug on his tank.
``First I was thinking turtle or catfish, but then I knew by the strength of the jerk,'' recalled Martinez, a subcontractor for Birdie Golf in Pompano Beach, Florida, who dives about 15 courses for the company. ``I went to grab my knife from my right leg, but my left hand was exposed. That's when she bit.''
The next he knew, Martinez was being pulled by an 8-foot female alligator toward the center of the lake.
``This is what you always think about,'' Martinez said. ``Do not freeze up, do not lock up. I need to get to the front of her head.''
Martinez fought to gain a position at the front of the gator's head and started to punch the animal.
``When I was in front of her, while my left hand was still in her mouth -- I felt her tongue, it was the strangest thing -- I started to punch her. She was a tough cookie. After about 20 punches she finally let go.''
Martinez darted to the surface and yelled for help while swimming to the edge of the lake. Startled golfers heard him and raced to pull him out. He had 12 puncture wounds from the attack. The alligator fared worse: She was caught and killed.
``I got cocky,'' Martinez said. ``If you keep getting away with it, you think you're almost bulletproof. Today I surface more often to look around. When somebody told me that there are gators on a course, I thought `money' because many divers wouldn't go there.''
For divers, the best hidden treasures are golf clubs hurled by their frustrated owners into the ponds that can range in depths from a shallow few feet to the occasional 70 feet.
``It's irregular to not find clubs,'' said Lovelace, who puts new grips on them for resale.
Rick Batista, owner of Rick's Golf Balls in Los Angeles, owns about 10,000 clubs collected over the past 20 years, many found in ponds. The walls of his garage are covered from floor to ceiling with racks of clubs, some of which have the original wooden heads. Batista didn't know finding golf balls was going to be a lifelong venture when he first searched for them at age 8, skimming nearby golf course lakes on his surfboard.
Fortunately for the divers, duffers rarely attempt to retrieve their possessions on their own. There are exceptions.
During one of his jobs, Martinez witnessed an exasperated golfer throw his entire bag of clubs into a lake.
``What he realized when he stomped back to the car was that his car keys were in the bag,'' Martinez said. ``He got soaking wet when he waded into the pond trying to get the bag out, but he couldn't get it. So I helped him out.''
In his neoprene dive suit, flippers and mask, Martinez looks out of place among golfers in checkered slacks and spikes on this 90-degree day. He prepares to waddle into the lake that runs the length of the Addison Reserve golf course in Delray Beach. A nightmare for many golfers who hook their shots, the murky lake is a gold mine for divers.
``The golf ball divers probably have the weirdest jobs on golf courses,'' said Dave Youpa, manager of Southern California's Industry Hills course. ``They come in during the day while people are playing their rounds. It's funny because often you just see bubbles in the ponds, and you're like, `What the heck?'''
Many divers are approached with comments like ``Nice golf outfit'' or ``Hey, if you find Titleists, they're all mine,'' said Paul Lovelace, owner of Golf Ball Paul's, a golf ball retrieval and resale company in Kansas City, Missouri.
Lovelace, a former oil-rig diver, has been in the golf ball diving business for 23 years. Martinez, a recreational diver with an interest in marine science, stumbled into his current profession 15 years ago. They say the money is good if you're willing to put up with occupational hazards that include bites from snapping turtles, attacks from alligators and attitudes from territorial otters or beavers.
A snapping turtle punctured the glass of Martinez's mask with its beak a few months ago. ``Without my mask, I would have lost my nose,'' he said. ``I've learned not to touch.''
Divers can earn about 8 cents a ball and usually recover an average of 3,000 to 5,000 a day. Lovelace, who subcontracts with other divers to help retrieve balls on about 250 courses across the U.S. Midwest, expects to sell about 4 million reclaimed balls this year, almost double last year's haul.
Independent divers or contractors like Golf Ball Paul's usually pay courses a fee to get permission to dive in their ponds. In other cases, the courses pay divers by the ball and resell them in their own shops for about half the price they cost new or use them for their driving ranges. A Titleist Pro V1 golf ball, a high-quality model that's popular for its accuracy and control, costs about $4 new. Americans spent $885 million on new golf balls in 2002, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Although golf ball diving can be lucrative, it's a demanding occupation. The job requires five to eight hours spent in zero- visibility waters that are often polluted with fertilizers and littered with sharp clamshells and bottle shards.
``It was hard to get used to not seeing anything,'' Lovelace said. ``The visibility is nil, and that made me feel pretty claustrophobic at first. You are basically just feeling your way around.''
There's another reason the ponds are called water hazards: Sometimes they're inhabited by toothy critters who don't appreciate visitors.
``It's scary when you are grabbing something that isn't a golf ball,'' Lovelace said.
Martinez agrees. Three minutes into a dive at the Links of Boynton Beach in Florida last April, he felt a tug on his tank.
``First I was thinking turtle or catfish, but then I knew by the strength of the jerk,'' recalled Martinez, a subcontractor for Birdie Golf in Pompano Beach, Florida, who dives about 15 courses for the company. ``I went to grab my knife from my right leg, but my left hand was exposed. That's when she bit.''
The next he knew, Martinez was being pulled by an 8-foot female alligator toward the center of the lake.
``This is what you always think about,'' Martinez said. ``Do not freeze up, do not lock up. I need to get to the front of her head.''
Martinez fought to gain a position at the front of the gator's head and started to punch the animal.
``When I was in front of her, while my left hand was still in her mouth -- I felt her tongue, it was the strangest thing -- I started to punch her. She was a tough cookie. After about 20 punches she finally let go.''
Martinez darted to the surface and yelled for help while swimming to the edge of the lake. Startled golfers heard him and raced to pull him out. He had 12 puncture wounds from the attack. The alligator fared worse: She was caught and killed.
``I got cocky,'' Martinez said. ``If you keep getting away with it, you think you're almost bulletproof. Today I surface more often to look around. When somebody told me that there are gators on a course, I thought `money' because many divers wouldn't go there.''
For divers, the best hidden treasures are golf clubs hurled by their frustrated owners into the ponds that can range in depths from a shallow few feet to the occasional 70 feet.
``It's irregular to not find clubs,'' said Lovelace, who puts new grips on them for resale.
Rick Batista, owner of Rick's Golf Balls in Los Angeles, owns about 10,000 clubs collected over the past 20 years, many found in ponds. The walls of his garage are covered from floor to ceiling with racks of clubs, some of which have the original wooden heads. Batista didn't know finding golf balls was going to be a lifelong venture when he first searched for them at age 8, skimming nearby golf course lakes on his surfboard.
Fortunately for the divers, duffers rarely attempt to retrieve their possessions on their own. There are exceptions.
During one of his jobs, Martinez witnessed an exasperated golfer throw his entire bag of clubs into a lake.
``What he realized when he stomped back to the car was that his car keys were in the bag,'' Martinez said. ``He got soaking wet when he waded into the pond trying to get the bag out, but he couldn't get it. So I helped him out.''
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