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Diving golf course lakes in Florida to retrieve golf balls can be a very lucrative business if done at scale and Jim Best, who once worked 65 courses up the East Coast including TPC Sawgrass, knows a thing or two about that. He recently said that the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass where The Players Championship is held yields him around 70,000 recovered golf balls each year.
If those recovered golf balls happen to be Titleist Pro-V1’s or Pro-V1X’s, they can sell for around $18/dozen. Let’s assume those 70K golf balls are all Pro-V1’s, which they absolute are NOT (but many are), that would be worth around $105K after he resold them just from the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass in North Florida alone and he works the whole course as well as nearly a dozen more courses.
Jim Best recently spoke with CNN Sport about his unique job and some of the incredible treasures he’s found over the years, including rare putters and balls from Tiger Woods and other global celebs. Best also shared stories about his dangerous run-ins with 10+ foot alligators and alligator attacks he has survived.
He said “a few years ago, there was an 11-foot and a nine-foot alligator around the green where I was diving. I worked as long as I felt OK and they were staying at bay; if they got too curious, I got out.” But he wasn’t so lucky when a 4-foot alligator bit him on the ankle, saying “I was 18 (feet) under when he grabbed me. Their teeth are very, very sharp, especially the little ones, like a Doberman Pinscher with sharper teeth and a stronger bite.”
On another occasion an alligator ambushed him but went for his oxygen tank and “busted his mouth up.” Then in 2007 at Innisbrook Golf Resort a 14-foot alligator came the scariest incident according to his CNN Sport profile. He said a massive Florida alligator “raised its body out of the water on the Island Course and began growling, with its body reverberating and water flying off its back. Best’s dive buddy Pascal was diving underwater, oblivious to the danger. ‘Totally the (most scared) I’ve been in my life,’ he says, ‘The hardest thing I had to do was get back in the water and get my guy out. I almost didn’t do it, but I was like, ‘Either I’m a real man or I’m not.'”
Florida Golf Ball Diver Finds Treasures At TPC Sawgrass
But it’s not all about hiding from alligators, of course. Jim Best says in 2005 at TPC Sawgrass, just after The Players Championship, he found one of Tiger Woods’ balls in the water. This was about 2 weeks before Tiger won the 2005 Masters. He said “it was elation” finding the ball printed with Tiger Woods’ markings, a proper souvenir from arguably the greatest golfer of all-time and certainly the greatest golfer of his generation.
Best also has a ball marked ‘RORS’ from Rory McIlroy which he found at Doral, multiple balls that belonged to Phil Mickelson, and he believes he’s found balls that were owned by Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. He’s also found a DJT ball, saying “I’ve got President Trump’s ball; it’s marked Donald J. Trump in red letters, I don’t know how that gets eclipsed,. I mean, you may not like President Trump, but it’s just the fact that there’s only one of him.”
But it’s not just golf balls he finds down there!
Jim Best says he’s also found multiple highly valuable putters. Best said he has come across cellphones, cameras, hats, sunglasses and added “I’ve gotten five or six Scotty Cameron putters. They’re just flung out there!”
For the uninitiated, Scotty Cameron putters are the best around and they range from $400 at the lowest end on up to nearly $400K (est. value) for Tiger Woods’ Scotty Cameron that he won 14 of his 15 major championships with.
I did look for video of Jim Best at work and interestingly, I found another video of a golf ball diver at TPC Sawgrass. This clip is from nearly 8 years ago and features diver Gordon Davis who jumps into the water at TPC Sawgrass to retrieve the literally hundreds of golf balls that get deposited in that lake every single day.
Ultimately, diving for golf balls is a time consuming business. Many golf courses use water flow systems designed to pool the balls in certain areas making them easier to retrieve. Then this machine is the industry standard but there are plenty of others out there:
If you can brave the bacteria, the alligators, snakes, alligator snapping turtles, suffocating Florida humidity and sun, then this is a very well-paying job if you can convince the golf courses to let you on the property but at this point you will certainly need ins to land connections at courses like TPC Sawgrass. Best to start with your local muni and see how it goes.