US Open Golf Tourney Creates Hometown Entrepreneurs Around Merion Course
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By Mike DeNardo
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ARDMORE, Pa. (CBS) -- The US Open is providing an opportunity for people who live around the Merion Golf Club to make some quick cash, any way they can.
"I might as well get in on the action. We're going to be compromised, so...," says John Lloyd, sitting in a folding chair outside his Wynnewood Road house (top photo). He's got room for 27 cars to park in his and his neighbor's backyards.
And not only is he running a shuttle bus to the course, but he's planning to sell water and food to some of the thousands of people descending on his neighborhood.
"The traffic -- the people traffic going down here from wherever they're parking, has been crazy," Lloyd tells KYW Newsradio. "So we're going to make some money and meet some people from out of town."
Lloyd says that although he is a golf fan, he'll be more intently following the action outside of the Merion golf course this year.
Meanwhile, under a tent along Haverford Road, Ed Marti is a one-man StubHub, buying and selling tickets to the US Open.
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Marti says the price goes up once competition begins, but you can get a practice round ticket for under $100 right now.
"Like, $80. On the weekend, they're going for anywhere from $200 to $350 a ticket," he predicts.
Around the corner, Charles O'Mahoney took out the white fence bordering his in-laws' lawn, turning their front yard into a parking lot.
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"I was here yesterday and I'd seen all the neighbors are just making money hand over fist, and I couldn't pass up the buck," O'Mahoney says.
Parking prices seemed to get higher the closer you got to the course. But O'Mahoney says he was keeping his price at a reasonable $35 a day.
