Who Said Lake Golf Balls Are No Good?

If you've been following my posts you know that me and my brother used to sell golf balls on the weekends to golfers. More specifically we sold them along side the 3rd hole at Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach, CA. We would have them out on display in egg cartons behind the fence right next to the tee box. We figured this was a strategic selling place because the golfers couldn't miss seeing the golf balls as they would walk up to the tee box.

One day a golfer walked up and immediately said our golf balls were no good because they were waterlogged from being in the lakes. We both said that a lot of these golf balls have only been in the water for a few hours and there's no way they were waterlogged. The golfer was convinced that these experienced golf balls were waterlogged and not worth the 50 cents a piece we were charging. Now that I think back we should have been charging more than 50 cents because a lot of them looked like they came from a brand new sleeve of golf balls.

Anyway, my brother was getting a little pissed at this guy and said "Let my brother hit one of these golf balls with your driver and see how water logged they are." The golfer thought about it for a second and then said ok.

I climbed over the fence to hit the golf ball. I was pretty nervous as he handed me his driver. You have to remember that I was only about 13 years old the time. I teed up the ball and ripped one down the middle and the ball rolled up about 10 yards short of the green. I could tell everyone in the group was stunned at how well I hit the ball. It was all it took because they all bought golf balls from us.

From that day forward that same Saturday group were regular customers of ours. It didn't take long for word to spread about our golf balls and business was good for the Smith brothers.
Tags: golf, golf story, golf equipment

Golf's Dreaded Worm-burner

I know most of you know what I'm talking about when I say "Golf's Dreaded Worm-burner." It's that golf shot where you just about get all of it, but it barely gets off the ground flying at a high rate of speed.

I've hit my share of worm-burners playing golf, but one time I won't forget. I was teeing off on the par 5 4th hole at Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach. I hit a solid worm-burner with my driver and about 50 yards out I hit a mallard duck right in the head. It instantly dropped it to the ground. When we got up to the mallard it was barely alive. At the time I was only 13 years old and it made me really sad that I hit it. A friend that I was with hunted ducks with his dad and said we had to kill it to put it out of its misery.

There was no way I was going to do that so my friend took his 5-iron and with one hit it was dead. It was the humane thing to do, but it was still a very sad day. I continued my golf round, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

To this day when I'm playing golf I make sure the first 100 yards off the tee is clear so that I don't put myself in that situation again because I don't want my day of golf to be ruined by something like this.

Has this every happened to you while playing golf?

Golf Cheater Sent Off To Siberia

Now this post might strike a nerve with some of you because I know it does with me. There's nothing worse in golf than someone who cheats on their golf score.

When I was around 13 years old I used to occasionally play golf with my friend and neighbor Todd. He liked to play golf, but rarely practiced to improve his game. I would practice and I was getting better, but I could tell Todd didn't like that I was getting better. I think more importantly he didn't like that I was getting better than him.

Well we were playing one afternoon at Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach, CA and we were walking off the first green on to the second tee. I told Todd I had a par and he said he had par too. Now I know for a fact that he had a 6, but I didn't say anything. We played the 2nd hole a par 3 and I bogeyed it and Todd said he bogeyed too, but he actually had a double-bogey.

I wouldn't have been as made as I was getting if it weren't for the fact that we placed a $2 bet on the best 9-hole score. Here I am busting my butt to beat him and he continues to give himself scores that he doesn't deserve. I realized that no matter what I scored Todd was always going to score the same or better than me.

So that's when I took out my 7-iron and started to beat the shit out of him until he said he wouldn't cheat anymore. Well that's not exactly what I did, but it was what I was thinking. I was so frustrated that Todd was cheating and he didn't think twice about it.

What should we do with these cheaters? How about we treat them as outcasts and send them off to Siberia?

Do you play golf with someone who's like this? What do you do when they start cheating on their golf score?

Scrimpin For Golf Balls

In one of my previous posts I talked about me and my brother selling used golf balls to golfers on the weekends, but what I didn't mention is how we turned it into a small used golf ball business. We initially started out selling the used golf balls that would come over the fence surrounding the golf course. We then took it to the next level and decided to go where the real money was... in the lakes inside the golf course. Of course this was something that had to be done at night because we knew the golf course wouldn't approve of us taking a dip in their lakes during the day to get the experienced golf balls.

I still remember my first experience going into the lake at Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach. We wore our two piece wetsuits to keep us warm because the water and air at night was pretty cold. The bottom of the golf course lake was slimy with the mud oozing between my toes and there where crawdads as well. We made up a name for what we were doing called scrimpin. Scrimpin to us was crouching down and feeling with your hands and feet for the used golf balls along the banks under the water. We'd stuff them into the long tube socks we'd bring to carry the golf balls in.

Now there were a couple of hazards in scrimping; 1) the crawdads where very protective of the banks and now then you'd get pinched on your hand or foot. I sometimes wondered if they were protecting the used golf balls as well; 2) while scrimping we were always freaked out by what could be in the lake and we were always on the look out for "The Creature From The Black Lagoon." You know how kids are with their imaginations; and; 3) the golf course maintenance guys would occasionally come by the lake. This required us to take drastic measures. We would have to go under the water and hold our breath until they went by. Let me tell you... that water was pretty disgusting and I'm surprised we didn't get sick from it.

On a good night we would get about 60 experienced golf balls of which half were good enough to sell back to the golfers. We'd go 2 or 3 times during the week and clean them up Friday night so we'd be ready for Saturday and Sunday mornings at the golf course. We asked the neighbors to keep their empty egg cartons and give them to us. We used these as a way to present and sell a dozen of the used golf balls at a time with each dozen being of one brand like Titleist, MaxFli, Topflite, etc... A dozen golf balls would sell for $6 and we'd typically have 6 to 10 dozen for sale. So on a good weekend we could make $30 a piece, which made us feel rich having that kind of money in our pocket.

After about six months of scrimpin we decided that there had to be a better way to get the golf balls out of the lakes. And sure enough we found a better way and created an ingenious device that would do just that. My next post I'll describe in detail how me and my brother could have made millions with this device.

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.