Going, Going, Gone... Golf Style

I mentioned in my previous post that me and my brother used to sell used golf balls back to the golfers when they'd hit it over the golf course fence. We'd get up early on a Saturday and Sunday morning with our baseball mitts in hand and walk over to the fence on the 6th hole (along Graham St) of Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach, CA.

We were usually the first ones there, but by 9:00am there would be at least 5 more kids waiting for the same reason. Now the reason why we brought our baseball mitts was because we wanted to catch the used golf ball before it hit the street. If it did hit the street then it would get a big scuffmark on it and the golfers wouldn't pay a dime for it.

I still remember to this day the feeling of anticipation we all had for a golf ball to come flying over the fence. It was like a track meet where all of us were on our marks watching the next golfer on the tee, and as soon as we saw it come off the golf club head we knew if it was coming over or not. Let me tell you when it did it was like a bunch of small kids going after the candy that spills out of a piñata after its broken open. You'd be surprised how many golf balls would fly over that fence in a 3 to 4-hour period.

Back then the golf ball of choice was Titleist and Maxfli, but I remember when the Molitor golf ball came out. This was considered the illegal golf ball because of how far it would go. When one of us would get a Molitor golf ball it was like finding a gold nugget because we could sell it back to the golfers for $1.

Now the next thing we'd all do is try to get the golfers to come over to the fence to see if they wanted to buy some of our experienced golf balls. It was always the case where the golfer who hit the golf ball over the golf course fence wasn't about to come over and buy his own golf ball back :-) Back then, which was the mid-70's, a brand new golf ball that we caught would go for 50 cents. While that may not seem like a lot it was a lot back then for both a 10 and 11 year-old boy.

We did this for another year and then we decided that there had to be an easier way to get more experienced golf balls. What follows next is how we took things to the next level and became true entrepreneurs. I'll leave that for another post.