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- Use your diving skills to get paid to retrieve golf balls from lakes and water hazards on golf courses
- You'll need excellent diving skills and the ability and confidence to work in low visibility
- Work can be part time and seasonal but you could travel around the world or set up your own company
Diving for golf balls in the UK can mean working in very murky water with very little disability, so it's quite different to leisure diving, but the work can be well paid. If you're diving for golf balls in other countries you may find that there are other hazards to consider like potentially dangerous wildlife (for example alligators in the US).
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
- Travel to golf courses and use your diving skills to retrieve lost golf balls from the bottom of lakes and water hazards
- Each water hazard on a golf course can contain many thousands of lost golf balls which can be cleaned and re-sold, so individuals and specialist companies are paid to retrieve the balls periodically
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
Some divers who do this work do it independently and sell the balls they retrieve on themselves (or get paid to return them to the golf course), whilst others will work for a professional company that provides this service to golf courses. If you work for a company you'll often work as part of a team who use a roller to gather up the golf balls with divers supporting the process.
You'll need
This role is ideal for someone with excellent swimming ability, stamina and physical fitness, calmness under pressure, good levels of concentration under demanding physical conditions, the ability to follow strict safety procedures, the ability to work both as part of a team and alone.
To become a golf ball diver you'll need to complete your scuba diving training to a high standard - normally HSE Scuba Part IV (which is professional dive training), and you'll need to have full commercial diving insurance.
You can start out by doing basic scuba dive training to help you work out if this kind of work is for you, and then build up your training until you achieve your professional qualification. Examples include courses offered by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) or British Sub-Aqua Club. This can be quite expensive as the training and equipment can be costly. However, if you are able to find the money to invest in this training it will mean you are able to do other kinds of commercial diving as well as golf ball diving.
You must pass a medical carried out by a doctor approved by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) before you begin professional diver training.
CAREER PROSPECTS
This work is likely to be part time and seasonal for most divers in the UK, although it is possible to work around the world and travel from place to place or set up your own company offering this service.