ORANGE COUNTY GOLF NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Diving for Dollars: Ball Hawk Thrives by Retrieving Errant Shots

Few sights unnerve a recreational golfer more than a body of water lying in wait to swallow an errant shot.

Suitably shaken, the average golfer might lose several balls per round in water hazards. For most players, that means more frustrating moments on the golf course. But for Larry Margison, it’s money in the tank.

Since 1972, Margison has made a living retrieving balls from ponds. Starting with accounts at three Orange County courses, he has built a business that services 70 courses in Nevada, Arizona and Southern California. Margison’s company, Ball Hawk, based in a warehouse in Rancho Santa Margarita, now handles about three million golf balls a year.

After being pulled out of the water, the balls are soaked, washed and sorted. The best balls, which are in near-perfect condition, can be resold to the public for as much as $1.50. Ball Hawk ships some balls overseas, some are recycled to range balls and others are sold at Golf Balls Plus, the small retail operation at the Ball Hawk warehouse.

Ball Hawk also buys balls from golfers who have accumulated large caches and from the children who scour the canyons around local courses.

Margison learned early in his life that there is money to be made around golf courses. Growing up next to Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington Beach, he picked up extra change shagging balls for golfers.

“Then, as I started to play golf, I realized all the golf balls I saw people hitting in the water were potential profits,” Margison said.

By the time he was 14 or 15, Margison was going after those profits by diving in after the balls, often without the permission of the course operators.

For his exploits, he was teased by his peers--”Frog” was a popular nickname--and occasionally had his playing privileges revoked. Still, he developed into a good-enough golfer to play three years of varsity at Marina High and win the Sunset League individual championship in 1971, his senior year.

Gradually, he said, he toned down his illegal activities and took various jobs at the course.

“I did anything I could do around the golf course to earn money,” he said. “To me it seemed like an easy way to earn a lot if you worked hard.”

Margison continued playing golf, helping Golden West College to a third-place finish in the state in the 1971-72 season.

Although he thought he had a chance to make a living playing golf, he gave up serious competitive play for a sure thing.

At first, he ran the ball retrieval business out of his home in Westminster, eventually building a clientele of 25-30 courses that he serviced himself.

In 1987, he moved the business out of his home and into a warehouse in Laguna Niguel and it took off from there.

Margison’s biggest business problem is the poachers--or “nighthawks”--who, as he did as a youth, trespass on courses, making off with the balls that are contractually his to reap.

Margison estimates he lost $250,000 in sales last year because of such thievery.

Margison believes it should be considered a felony. “It’s no different than somebody going in your house and stealing your TV,” Margison said.

But thus far, those people caught have usually only been charged with misdemeanor trespassing, not theft, which frustrates Margison. He is also irked that some golf professionals buy lake balls from convicted nighthawks.

Margison said he is offering a $500 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of nighthawks and also said he has been tempted to take matters into his own hands.

“If I can’t get cooperation from the golf pros or the police, then what choice do we have but to become vigilantes?” he said.

Besides near-perfect, pro-line balls for $12 per dozen, Golf Balls Plus has a limited supply of recycled clubs for sale. When clubs are fished out of ponds during ball-retrieval sessions, they are usually bent in half, apparently over their former owner’s knee.

“It’s either their putters or their drivers and a few sand wedges,” said Dean Paulson, Ball Hawks’ warehouse manager. “There are drivers in here that people paid $150 for and they just threw them away.”

Two local players qualified Monday at Southern California courses for the U.S. Amateur Championship Aug. 25 in Dublin, Ohio. Placentia’s Chris Tidland, a former Valencia High standout, shot 143 over 36 holes at Saticoy Country Club in Camarillo, finishing in a tie for second among six qualifiers. Mark Sear of Newport Beach shot 145 to take the last spot at Wood Ranch Golf Club in Simi Valley.

Tiger Woods of Cypress received an exemption to the U.S. Amateur for the second consecutive year by winning the U.S. Junior Amateur this month.

Last year, Woods failed to make it past the 36-hole qualifying round.

Hole of the week: Although it won’t win any contests for its scenic beauty, the No. 6 hole on the Los Lagos Course at Costa Mesa has a certain Southern California charm.

Fitting for this land of droughts and concrete rivers, the hole is a dogleg left, par-5 that plays along a flood-control channel.

From the 510-yard regular tees, a player who hits a drive shorter than 200 yards might be tempted to cut the dogleg by hitting over the ditch.

Bad idea.

Even if you are able to clear the wash, the left side of the fairway after the turn is lined by a grove of trees that can cause problems, so keep right or get lost.