A senior editor at Golf Digest, Scott Smith say “golfer’s misery has become a big business.” Around one billion golf balls are produced annually with about 100 million of them being recovered by golf-ball divers and re-sold. The retrieval and recycling of golf balls has become a multimillion-dollar industry over the past few decades. Those hard working divers who can stomach the harsh conditions, can bring in $50,000 to $100,00 annually, depending on the economy.
These divers have a job full of dangers so this wealth does not come easily. From gators, snakes, fertilizers and pesticides, they have faced it all, but their biggest threat is the poachers who creep onto courses with the intention to steel and effect the profits of the divers.
A contract is signed by an individual diver or retrieval company to gather balls from the ponds. The retrieval company then pays the golf course a per-ball fee which is typically 8 to 10 cents a ball. The company can sell the balls to overseas vendors or to national chain stores. Called the Cadillac of golf balls, the Titleist Pro V1s sells for about $50 a dozen, recycled they go for one-third to one-half the price.
Poachers have names given to them by the pros: Captain Midnights, Nighthawks and Nighthunters. They are generally criminals and thieves and every ball they retrieve is pure profit.
It takes a special kind of person to do this work. Divers must have regular tetanus shots because of the much and chemicals that fill the water. Palm Beach and Arizona have plastic-lined, man-made ponds and they are thought of as the cushiest in the business because golf ball diving is done in zero visibility blackwater. You cannot see your finger if you put it to your mask so cannot see your pressure gauge either or whatever else in lying on the bottom of the pond. Broken bottles are also on the floor of the ponds so heavy gloves need to be worn.
Similar to rock climbers, golf ball diver treat death with a casual interest since everyone knows of someone, or heard of someone, who has died. Divers have drown from being caught on various hazards in these ponds, whether it is lures and fishing lines or barbed wire.