As far as profession modifications go, leaving your job as a policeman to end up being a golf ball scuba diver is quite unforeseeable.
John Colenutt served in the Metropolitan Police for 15 years prior to beginning his business, GolfBalls4You.
And on extremely hectic days the 44-year-old and his group can recover as much as 12,000 balls.
John, from Bexley in London, services around 70 golf courses throughout England and Wales, recuperating tonnes of balls which have actually wound up in ponds, rivers and lakes.
John utilized to offer used golf balls on eBay while he was was operating at a driving variety as a trainee in the 1990s.
Hundreds of balls would be discarded since they weren’t the club’s home brand name – so rather he offered them online, asking £20 for 100 balls.
After taking a profession break from the Met in 2015 he reignited his pastime and trained to scuba dive in Spain.
However diving for golf balls in the UK is worlds apart from diving in the Mediterranean.
John and his group typically need to smash through ice throughout the winter season, can hardly see undersea, and need to handle poisonous snakes, inbound golf balls, and aggressive fish.
He explained: ‘I still manage to play golf once in a while – stick some balls in the water, which I know I’ll return in a couple of months’ time.
‘The best day we’ve ever had was around 12,000 balls, however that was a remarkable day.
‘We likewise as soon as gathered 28,500 balls in 3 days, which is simply under 2 tonnes of balls.
‘If every job was like that, I would be a rich man.’
GolfBalls4U obtains balls, cleans them up, and after that resells them for a portion of their typical cost.
But while recovering golf balls may sound relatively simple, it’s no mean task, as the scuba divers need to gather them by hand to prevent harming the riverbed or lake bottom.
John, who resides in Sussex with his spouse and 10-year-old child Milly said: ‘You have to feel your way along the bottom because there’s generally no exposure – you can’t see anything.
‘We have these net bags which appear like lobster pots and can hold around 20 kilos.
‘We typically discover clubs when somebody has a bad putt or chip and after that lobs it into the pond.
‘We likewise discover phones, glasses, flags, golf buggies and great deals of brollies.
‘You could say that my business benefits from bad golfers in two respects, because it’s where I get my balls from, and after that I offer the balls back to them.’
The scuba divers likewise have severe temperature levels to compete with – in some cases breaking through ice throughout the winter season, or having problem with heavy bags of balls and package throughout the summertime.
And the residents aren’t constantly friendly.
‘We often have to break ice and the water is close to or below zero – that’s a brief working day,’ John said.
‘We are using 35 to 45 kilos of package and our bags weigh another 20 plus kilos.
‘Sometimes you’re in 40-degree heat in a black dry fit, waist deep in mud, silt and weeds.
‘Adders are rather typical and they are not terrified people.
‘If you see one swimming around, finest leave the pond and leave it to enjoy its swim.
‘You also have giant carp which are used to being fed, so they swim right up and whack you right in the face – scares the life out of you.’
Some of the ponds John and his group see might not have actually been cleared in twenty years – which can have major ecological effects.
In those cases, with scuba divers ‘knee deep in golf balls’, most of the balls can’t be recycled and are for that reason recycled, as John attempts to have as little effect on the environment as possible.
‘When I’m working, I’ll have golf enthusiasts come near me and state ‘oh you drew the short straw’ or ‘that’s a dreadful job’, however I’ve had far even worse jobs,’ John said.
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