Golf ball divers

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LOL Great video find Alewar. Man I am telling you, they have guts and/or balls. Good grief.
 
I dove for golf balls in the 70s right after I was certified. I've recently been getting more active in diving and PADI offered me a night diving class. After spending weeks diving water hazards I thought it was pretty funny. We hung nylon nets around our necks and used twin 72s. We'd spend hours mucking around in the slim collecting balls. My fear was running into a water mocasin nest. Vis...you could put your hand on your mask and couldn't see it. But, as a number of members have commented, it's good money!
 
I've got a friend who is a commercial diver today, was a Navy Seal during Nam. He has dived in some pretty intense stuff over the years (his channel cats bigger than him at river dams, cow carcasses stories come to mind), but says hands down, he won't go anywhere near a golf course, even if he was starving and needed money.
 
Hmm..I will have to talk to my local course owner(who is a good friend of me and has said go dive anytime)..the course is relatively new (7? years)...LOTS of water..no real estate bordering it for sewage...just lots of duck crap..and a few muskrats..likely some leeches..But..that being said..they (the ponds) have never been dove..and I know I have donated hundreds..lol..

But, the question is...will he buy them back?
 
I've been thinking about doing this, my family has a 27 hole course with a few ponds that I know has tons of balls in them. A neighbor used to do it about 15 year ago but quit because of the snakes. One time we had some guys with a big drum (like a driving range picker) with two trucksters with winches in the back of them and they pulled the drum back and forth through the ponds and raked out hundreds of balls every couple passes. I'll have to ask my father how many balls they ended up getting.
 
If the golf course choses not to buy them from you, there are TONS of wholesalers that would be more than happy to purchase them from you, they will pay shipping too. FYI the easiest way to bag them is in nylon bags (like grass seed bags), although I have seen some golf balls that came from Hawaii in onion bags... We used wire tyes to close bag, a 1000 golf balls weigh 100# (pretty close, of course depending on your bag size). The only other tip I will give you is, if you start doing this, some of those balls will be "peelers" , since they have been in the water so long and you won't get top $ for them the first time, the wholesaler will grade them and mail you a check.
Good Luck in your new endeavor. Like everyone said, NO VIZ, you might as well shut your eyes so you don't see the shadows, if you do wear gloves you won't be able to "feel" the balls as well, although I have had other divers tell me "dishwashing rubber gloves are OK"...
 
The drum that you are referring to is called a "roller" made of air plane aluminum, so it is not too heavy, and if it is approx 24 " s tall and say 6-7 wide and full of balls it can hold up to 4000+ balls, the only problem using this, is if there is too much clay on bottom, it can get "buried & STUCK", then you will have a mess to get it out, and if the bottom is too soft they won't get caught in the cylinders and then of course if the ponds have lots of stumps and other misc on the bottom, you will spend most of your day, trying to get it around these objects, our rig, was run by 2 golf carts, with a kohler motor, wench system... Worked real good if you did not have the problems that I mentioned earlier. Good Luck
 
The guys using the roller got around 14,000 balls the first time they did it, the second time about half that. It's been quite a few years since anyone has been in those ponds besides the golfers with their ball retrievers. The ponds were dug so there isn't any obstructions but one pond has steep banks so they couldn't use their roller in that one.
 
I imagine it would be dangerous doing this solo, but like everyone has said there is no viz, so even if a problem arises it's probably not likely you'll be finding your buddy. Would it be any worse diving these solo rather than with a buddy?
 
Does anyone know where you can buy a roller machine like the one mentioned above? is a sandy surface a good surface to work with? also what are some of the wholesaler names that buy balls. I live in France and over here the french pro shops dont seem to sell used balls. I have been to a stack of courses and not one sells them and apart from kids and so on no one really goes looking for them. I am thinking about it as there really arent too many major predators in the waters in France. So if anyone can throw me some advice i'd love it. Thanks
 

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