GLENN BERGER WAS ‘partially unemployed’ 14 years ago when he came up with the simple idea of fishing golf balls out of lakes for money.
Living in Florida, that’s not the easiest of tasks as snakes and alligators are going to be everyday hazards of the job.
However, selling them at an average $1 dollar a ball to driving ranges and the like could make it a lucrative business, but $15 million lucrative? That’s a lot of golf balls.
But is it possible?
Berger says he recovers between 1.3 and 1.7 million balls a year so let’s split the difference and make it 1.5m. If he was to work seven days a week, 365 days a year he’d need to recover approximately 4,110 balls per day to hit his target.
That’s a lot but Berger says his personal best is 17,000 balls in a day and it helps that he works in Florida which has more than 1,250 golf courses.
The 40-year old has contracts with 30 of them and, to give him the benefit of the doubt, let’s say he doesn’t work on a ‘per-day’ contract but comes into each twice a year. That would require him to come up with 25,000 balls per visit.
According to the PGA PerformaceTrak, the average US course hosts about 30,000 rounds per year. Nobody knows for sure how many golf balls are lost per round but even if it was one per round — and some of us lose more than that — things begin, just about, to add up.
What do you think?
