JIM BEST might have the most bizarre job in sport – but he wouldn’t change it for the world.
The scuba diver plunges deep into lakes at the world’s top golf courses on the lookout for lost balls.
Scuba diver Jim Best has recovered thousands of golf balls from the most iconic holes in the sport[/caption]
Best claims he once salvaged more than 2 MILLION in a single year.
He’s bagged lost balls hit from the clubs of players including Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson.
And the Florida-based diver even managed to find President Trump’s lost ball on one dive.
He told CNN: “I’ve got President Trump’s ball.
“It’s marked Donald J. Trump in red letters, I don’t know how that gets eclipsed.
“I mean, you may not like President Trump, but it’s just the fact that there’s only one of him.”
Best spends hours diving into bodies of water across the biggest courses in the USA.
He can sometimes find up to 6,000 balls per day – and makes a tidy profit by selling them on.
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But he revealed there are also perils to the job – after revealing a close encounter with an ALLIGATOR at the iconic 17th at Sawgrass.
Best continued: “A few years ago, there was an 11-foot and a nine-foot alligator around the green where I was diving.
“I worked as long as I felt OK and they were staying at bay – if they got too curious, I got out.
“I mean I go there, and I make money, like harvesting a crop, like a field of corn.
“I was [bitten on the ankle once]. I was 18 [feet] under when he grabbed me.
“Their teeth are very, very sharp, especially the little gators, like a Doberman Pinscher with sharper teeth and a stronger bite.”
That encounter was nothing compared to an “oh c**p moment” involving a 14-foot gator at Florida’s Innisbrook Golf Resort.
Best and his friend were diving for balls when the huge reptile flung itself out of the water and headed straight for him.
He remembers: “Totally the [most scared] I’ve been in my life.
“The hardest thing I had to do was get back in the water and get my friend out.
“I almost didn’t do it, but I was like, ‘Either I’m a real man or I’m not.’”
