“I went to the Kentucky Derby and that’s when all of it type of got here collectively, the occasion was very worldwide,” mentioned Englishman Josh Webber, a part of the groundcrew throughout the 2008 Ryder Cup and the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Membership.
“The Derby was a improbable expertise. I went to the horse race and by no means noticed a horse. We have been within the infield partying,” added Irishman Paul O’Donoghue. Webber and O’Donoghue have been the one Europeans underneath Superintendent Mark Wilson’s orders throughout the memorable Ryder Cup at Valhalla.
“After I was mowing greens, I had the European flag wrapped round my shoulders and I wore a crown,” remembered Webber. “We at all times had the European flag flying and Mark went and acquired 200 American flags for the remainder of the staff,” O’Donohue recalled.
Each then younger males from the Previous Nation in Kentucky –now superintendents in southern England and The Netherlands—treasure the reminiscences of their time in Valhalla and the “huge similarities between the soil within the Islands and Kentucky,” even the whiskey, the grass, and the music.
“Aside from one or two locations, Eire is principally limestone, which supplies you the inexperienced,” defined O’Donohue. “The one purpose we name it bluegrass in Kentucky is as a result of when it’s sizzling it turns blue,” added the Irish superintendent concerning the origin of the title of the grass and the Bluegrass style, derived from conventional Scottish, Irish, and English music.
Bluegrass songs about household, horses, bourbon, and even limestone performed within the background throughout the time Webber and O’Donohue spent underneath the wing of Kentucky Golf Corridor of Famer Mark Wilson in Valhalla Golf Membership.
“Being a part of the constructing of Valhalla put the wind on my again and launched me downhill,” mentioned Wilson, who began his profession within the seventies together with the primary class of formally educated superintendents within the nation.
“For 22 years I mowed the bent grass fairways of Valhalla with inexperienced mowers and reduce the clippings. And each winter we needed to extent the location and the venue,” mentioned now-retired Wilson, privileged witness of 1 Ryder Cup and three PGA Championships in Valhalla.
