WORKING IN L.A. / THE BALL RETRIEVER : Wincing as Others Take Their Best Shots

Most people involved in the sport of golf spend a lot of time hitting the ball.

For Todd Wickey and Richard de la Torre, it’s a question of the ball hitting them.

Wickey and De la Torre are among the stalwart few who venture out onto golf driving ranges in funny-looking machines to retrieve golf balls.

What makes their work exciting is that they do it while other people are driving golf balls--usually with considerable force, and often right at them.

Fortunately, Wickey and De la Torre are protected. The machines they drive--usually golf carts, Jeeps or tractors that push or pull devices that scoop up the balls--are screened with a heavy wire mesh.

“But when they hit you, it sounds like a firecracker going off right next to your head,” said Wickey, an 18-year-old student from Azusa who works part time at the Glen Oaks municipal golf course in Glendora.

“I get hit by two or three every day. One day I got hit by 20,” he said. “It really startles you. You don’t get used to it.”

Bill McGee, 62, a starter at the Santa Anita county golf course in Arcadia, thinks it’s accidental, mostly a case of golfers who concentrate on the ball so hard that they don’t notice the guy out there riding the golf-ball picker-upper.

Wickey and De la Torre, the 29-year-old manager of the Arroyo Seco Golf Course in South Pasadena, are convinced that the golfers do it on purpose. “For them, it’s a challenge,” De la Torre said.

Golfer Griff Williams, 38, of Arcadia, agreed.

“It’s a moving target,” Williams said. “If you can hit a moving target, it means you’re a better golfer.”

This sort of reasoning bothers Wickey a bit.

“Instead of aiming at me, they should be working on their swing,” he said.

Even though he was once hit in the chest once by a ball that knocked the wind out of him after he accidentally left his mechanical scooper door open, Wickey admitted that his job is “a lot of fun” most of the time.

The device he hooks up to his golf cart looks a lot like a miniature disc harrow, with rows of plastic discs about a foot in diameter that are strung side-by-side along a long bar.

As the discs roll along the ground, the balls get stuck between them. The rotating discs carry the balls around to prongs that pluck the balls free and drop them into baskets. The balls are then washed and returned to the course’s pro shop.

Most of the people interviewed who drive the machines said they like working in the verdant outdoor surroundings and enjoy their relative independence.

Rather than follow straight rows, back and forth, like a farmer plowing a field, De la Torre prefers driving wherever the spirit moves him.

“When the weather’s nice, and things are a little slow, you just take your time and enjoy the view,” he said.

Every so often, though, the rattle of golf balls on the mesh protector around Wickey leads to thoughts of revenge.

“I feel like I’d like to stop, get out and hit a few back at ‘em,” he said.