“In the water! In the water!” young Scottie Walker chants quietly to himself as a golfer tees off on the 173-yard par-three hole five at the South Shore Golf Course.
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“When the ball goes in the drink, I’m makin’ money,” Walker explains. He’s been coming out to the golf course at 71st Street and Lake Michigan all summer, following a tip from a friend who said he could make as much as $5 a day fetching golf balls out of the hole-five pond and then selling them to wayward-hitting golfers.
Scottie, a slightly built five-footer, is 11 years old. He tries to get 50 cents for each ball he retrieves, but he’ll sell two balls for 75 cents just to move some product. On this day it’s 2 PM, and he’s made $2.50 in six hours’ work.
“I want to be president of Nike,” he says. “I want to own it. I want to get paid.”
“He’s a nice little hustler,” says Earl Hill, who’s 69. “He might make it to Nike. They’re opening the door for him right now.”
