In the news: Finders keepers? Millions of balls end up at the bottom of lakes every year - yielding profits for legitimate firms and temptation for the less cautious. As a ball retriever in Britain gets out of jail, Johnny Watterson on why the bottom of ponds can yield gold

There is one disease in golf that is consistent, steadfast and resilient, one born out of an irrational fear that all people share. Unlike a chronic slice or a tendency to tuck your trouser bottoms into your socks, with this disease no one ever gets cured. It is aqua phobia.

Water at the side; water in front, water at the back. The smell of water in the air; the knowledge that there are red stakes at the next hole; the hint of a drain or a pond; casual water, running brooks or stinky, reedy lakes. They all instill terror.

The fear of water is wide-ranging and profoundly embarrassing. It is irrational and unforgiving. People all over the world are cursed by its magnetic attraction to their golf ball, be it a Titleist ProV 1 or one of those garage rock balls collected at a knockdown price with petrol.

But the reality is that most people would prefer to leave a sleeve of Tour Balatas in the water at the 17th at Druids Glen than walk to the 18th having admitted that they couldn't land a ball on the island green. See, the water is addictive too. It is also an affront to golfing skills, a joke on masculinity.

On corporate days when there is a billion euros worth of tycoon spread across the fairways, it is to the water they hurry, cackling like schoolkids and only willing to hit pockets of Maxflis, Wilsons, Staffs and Precepts into its fat murky middle. Golf clubs occasionally follow. Golf carts too. You wouldn't believe what they pull out of the water on golf courses.

At Irish Open and Seve Trophy venue Druids Glen they clean out their lake at the 17th every two to three weeks. The eighth hole, where there is water around the left side and front is not that big a problem. But the club believe that at least 17,000 balls a year go into the water at the longer 17th, a hole where there is virtually no bale-out area.

"You get clubs in there as well, people losing their grip and that," says John Kinsella of Druids Glen. "We get about 36,000 rounds a season and at least 50 per cent will go into the water at the 17th. We get a diver every two or three weeks. We agree a figure on the job and he just comes in and takes the balls out."

You can pick your own watery favourites. The 16th at Powerscourt; the third at Mount Julliet; the 18th at CityWest; any number of them on the first nine on the new course at Headford and "Michael's Favourite" at the K Club's 16th.

The K Club also asks an experienced diver, John O'Neill, to keep their lakes ball free. The 16th, which is a drive up the gullet of trees on the left and water on the right onto a broadening fairway, requires an iron over water to the green.

A good drive for an average golfer from not too far back would leave a seven- or eight-iron to the pin, which is fronted by a pond and backed by the river Liffey. They once put a crocodile in the pond at the front for a promotion. Nice touch.

"I've taken out a gold watch from the lake," says O'Neill, who learned his diving in the Navy and on oilrigs. "Another time it was a golf cart with a full set of Pings. I've also taken a gold watch out. If someone loses a club I'll go down and get it for them.

"Another time I found a rifle and a couple of pistols in the Liffey behind the 17th hole. There were a lot of old bullets too. The weapons were ancient. They were in there a long-time, old 303 bullets. It was probably an old IRA dump," he says.

At an industrial level, UK Lake Balls have developed into a rapidly-growing and successful company retrieving balls that find watery graves at courses all over Britain. The company believes that a minimum of 10 million balls are lost each year in the UK.

But as much as golf clubs don't want the lakes silting up with thousands of balls, they do not want the type of "night raids" that recently landed ball retriever John Collinson in prison. UK Lake Balls pay the club for each ball they recover.

The teams are specialists and they operate from within the lakes, which avoids damage to the surrounding areas. The principal problem with the unauthorized taking of balls is the amount of damage to lakesides, plant life and in some instances wild life in and around the lakes.

Dredging is one of the favoured illegal methods and it can be as crude as throwing wire shopping baskets tied to the end of ropes into the water to scour the bottom and snag balls resting on the lake bed.

Despite only being established in February 2000, Lake Balls have sold over 1,000,000 balls to customers all over Europe including Colin Montgomerie's golf schools.

Grading the balls as "pearl" - on to the tee and into the lake - to "grade one" - a little marked - and finally "practice" balls, UK Lake Balls, currently the third largest company in the area, aim to become the largest supplier of new and used balls in the UK in three years time.

They also supply to Ireland through a company in Limerick called Celtic Isle Trading, who then redistribute the balls via clubs and retailers and sell on the Internet (www.golfballsireland-uk.com). Even if you lose your golf ball at St Andrews, Scotland, you could very well buy it back again in Ireland.

"We wouldn't have the same bulk of courses in Ireland with water on them as they do in England. The older courses, which are more traditional, don't have that many lakes. The country clubs that have arrived in recent years tend to have much more," says Celtic Isle's Alan Brady.

"I buy from divers, sort them and then sell them to the clubs. It's not the length of time the ball spends in the water that really affects them but the depth they are at, which affects the compression," he says. "The divers come up with huge amounts of balls, especially in summer."

Officials at The K Club estimate that with 28,000 rounds a year, a possible 30,000 balls would end up in the water. That would include a significant number of never-say-die players who keep loading up until they land one on the green. But even reasonably good players succumb to the "give it a lash" challenge.

"A couple of the stars lose their tempers," says The K Club's O'Brien. "A few years ago Michael Douglas threw a club into the water but his gold watch went in as well and I think it belonged to his father. But we went down and found it. It wasn't easy."

A little like landing a ball on a green from 200 yards.