Staring at you is the full expanse of a lagoon guarding the green. What’s the first thing you’d do?
Look for the oldest, ugliest ball in your pocket, of course. You don’t risk a freshly unboxed ProV1x. Not even after a few bottles of beer.
Yet Rudy “Amboy” Olbinado kept on finding those precious brands, along with Srixons and Honmas, when he dives, once a week, the lagoons of the Intramuros Golf Club.
Now just because the golf course was built around the historic Walled City of Manila doesn’t mean Olbinado would be fishing out war artifacts.
No Japanese soldier helmets, no human bones, no jewelries either. But plenty of broken clubs.
Well, that figures. Given the frustration of missing the island green No. 10 and seeing your ball sink in a watery grave.
“What we do is bring the retrieved balls in the office where they will be used as driving range balls. Some of them will be sold in the pro shop,” Olbinado told the Tribune Golf in Filipino.
He is first and foremost a groundskeeper in the course, working there since 1991, taking care of the greens and the fairways (specifically the landing areas).
But the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority — which runs the golf course — allows them to earn extra by diving for errant balls.
That slow Sunday afternoon, there were three of them diving the 10th. There are two other groups assigned to mine the waters on different days of the week.
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- RUDY Olbinado receives P6 per ball retrieved in the lagoon.
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- SLIM pickings on the initial foray: Neon green TaylorMade No. 3 and white Srixon No. 4.
They get P6 for each ball.
Measly amount by any measure. But that’s how Olbinado augmented his income supporting his wife and six children who are now grownups.
“Life is good, I don’t have any complaints,” said the Olbinado who is turning 61 on 5 January.
His children are now also working except for the youngest, aged 20, who is still in school. He has four grandchildren from them.
Olbinado hails from Pangasinan but has now rooted in Binangonan. His first tour of duty was the Navy Golf Course in Taguig.
“The most I got in a single diving session was six dozens,” Olbinado shared.
But that afternoon, after two laps scouring the shallow portion of the muddy lake, he only had two to show for it: A neon green TaylorMade No. 3 and a white Srixon No. 2.
He could get some pointers from ball divers on YouTube who are equipped with air tank and big nets. Olbinado didn’t even have a rake.
He would just feel his way, hands and feet, through the silt armed only with goggles.
It would take them all afternoon to “harvest,” but unfortunately there are times Olbinado would pick up shards of glass (now who would throw them there, right?) and wild mussels. Tough luck.
Yet somehow as a golfer that eases the pain of missing the green — and the birdie opportunity. You’d never looked at lost balls the same way again.
