Nicky earns money by retrieving golf balls: 'I get to visit the most beautiful golf courses in the world'

Nicky Dörfel has been collecting golf balls since his youth. According to him, that hobby got out of hand. And it certainly did. Nicky is now the owner of a company that retrieves golf balls from water hazards, both domestically and internationally. "I get to visit the most beautiful golf courses in the world," he told Hart van Nederland on Tuesday.

Nicky and his team retrieve about a million golf balls per year from ponds and lakes at (inter)national golf courses. Equipped with diving gear and nets to collect the golf balls, the divers jump into the water. They search for balls that were intended for a hole-in-one but unfortunately ended up in the water. "We wondered how we could get those balls out of the water," says Ad Jacobs, the owner of golf course De Turfvaert in Rijsbergen.

For Jacobs, Nicky's company was a great solution. "He approached us with the request to collect balls from our course. I had never heard of it before, but it works excellently."

Two goals

Retrieving the golf balls actually serves two purposes. First, there's a business aspect: once back on dry land, the balls are sorted by brand, quality and model. They are then sold to individuals through the webshop of Nicky's company.

Additionally, Nicky's dives also have an environmental purpose. "If a golf ball remains in the water for a long time, it will eventually burst open. It can take one hundred to a thousand years to decompose," Nicky knows. "The ball leaves plastic particles in the water that are harmful to the environment."

Danger lurks

On sunny days like Tuesday, Nicky enjoys his time on the golf course. But there is also danger. "We dive in the water hazards and sometimes lie in the line of play. So it's important to be careful not to get hit by a ball."

Every day Nicky finds thousands of failed balls in the water, but he himself may not be much better. Not yet at least. "I just started golf lessons, so soon I might be able to hit a ball into the water myself," he laughs in conclusion.