Golf’s old Kentucky home

Named after a fabled Viking warriors’ paradise,
Valhalla and its veteran superintendent prepare
for another Ryder Cup duel.

The par-4 ninth hole at Valhalla GC in Louisville, Ky., site of this month’s Ryder Cup. Photos courtesy of the PGA of America

Terry Ostmeyer

Mythology has it that the great hall where the souls of Vikings rejoiced with the gods was called Valhalla. It’s only right, then, that a golf course named after such a place would grow to host championships at the highest level.

So it is with Valhalla Golf Club near Louisville, Ky., site of this month’s 37th Ryder Cup matches, a biennial USA vs. Europe competition that appropriately brings the blood of many to an ancient Scandinavian warrior-like boil.

The Ryder Cup has been propelled to the sport’s highest order of prominence over the last couple of decades as the European side’s game caught on and has produced seven victories and a tie in the last 11 meetings after losing 17 of the first 19. The Euros’ surge has served to smother the home-and-home competition in a serious jingoistic fervor found in no other major golf event.

The Vikings reveled in that sort of us-versus-them atmosphere, and Valhalla was the ground on which they lived to die. The Ryder Cup at Valhalla on American soil may be a bit over the top as a correlation, but consider what the matches have become to those who play in them, those who host them, the hundreds of millions around the world who watch them and, especially for GCM’s readers, those who prepare the ground for play.

All myths aside, Valhalla Golf Club is a special place in its own right.

Pleasing to the gods

A prominent Louisville businessman, Dwight Gahm, and his sons, Walt, Gordy and Phil, hired none other than Jack Nicklaus more than 20 years ago to design and build a world-class, golf-only course on nearly 500 acres of rolling Kentucky terrain 20 miles east of the city.

A half-dozen years after the facility opened in 1986 amid rave reviews, it was awarded the 1996 PGA Championship. By then the PGA of America was smitten by the venue with its setting of natural amphitheaters (the 18th hole alone can accommodate 20,000 spectators), the absence of real estate interests and its expanse of corporate-friendly, non-golf property.

Three years before the ’96 championship, the PGA negotiated a deal to purchase 25 percent of the club. Shortly after the tournament itself, the organization increased its holding to 50 percent and quickly awarded the facility the 2000 PGA Championship. At the conclusion of that event, it bought the remaining interest in the club, making Valhalla the first PGA-owned championship site. In recent years, the facility has hosted the PGA Club Professional Championship (2002) and the Senior PGA Championship (2004).

Mark Wilson, CGCS, who will mark his 20th year as superintendent at Valhalla in November, has guided the versatile par-71 layout through all of those milestones and the assorted tweaks and changes that have gone with them. He has been especially impressed with the club’s physical evolution as a true venue for major events.

“The PGA has been developing infrastructure here and at selected courses around the country. I’ll tell you, we have infrastructure here next to none now,” he says of some of the more recent work leading up to the Ryder Cup that includes a 3-acre television compound, an expanded spectator bus terminal and an increase in corporate facilities that now cover more than a million square feet in flooring.

A recent renovation at Valhalla included the regrassing of the course’s putting surfaces to an A1/A4 bentgrass blend. This is the green on the par-4 14th hole.

Course changes

Valhalla is unique among championship courses in that its front nine is mostly a links-style layout and the back nine is more the traditional parkland setup. Turf varieties range from bentgrass tee through green, to bluegrass/rye intermediate rough and fescue/blue primary rough followed by native grasses and woodlands. The bunker surrounds and slopes feature zoysiagrass.

Until four years ago, most of the changes out on the course were relatively minor. But not long after Nicklaus walked off the 18th green as a competitor in the 2004 Senior PGA, he donned his designer’s attire and began an ongoing, more extensive makeover.

The most significant changes included the addition of nine new tees, mainly to push the total length to almost 7,500 yards; a bunker renovation, including the addition of two dozen bunkers; the elimination of thousands of scrubs, underbrush and trees, mostly to improve spectator viewing and movement; and improved course aesthetics, such as water features and landscaping.

But the biggest agronomic change occurred on the greens. Some contouring was modified, four greens were rebuilt entirely and all were regrassed from Penncross to an A1/A4 bentgrass blend.

“The greens are great, not only from a speed standpoint, but they’re so clean,” says Wilson. “When we had the opportunity to regrass we also had the opportunity to change years of soil makeup. We got rid of the organics and softened a lot of high spots. We just achieved a more consistent soil mix. Everything we changed was a good thing and made it better for us to grow grass.”

Speaking a month and a half before the Ryder Cup run Sept. 19-21, the 30-year GCSAA member added: “Mid-September is a great time here, but we’ve got to get there. Our struggle here is preparing for and getting through the Kentucky summers, which can be pretty cruel sometimes.”

The full-time maintenance team at Valhalla GC. Superintendent Mark Wilson, CGCS, is on the far right. Photo courtesy of Mark Wilson

A versatile Valhalla

Commenting to GCM on the most recent alterations to the course, Nicklaus believes it will be a better, more all-around layout as time and events play out.

“I think with the changes we have made in the last year or so, Valhalla is a stronger golf course, a more complete golf course. We took some of the holes we were not able to finish off, you might say, or do everything we wanted to in the original design and construction, and got them to the point where they probably should be,” he says, pointing to about 300 yards in added length, changing par from 72 to 71 and softening some of the greens contours and toughening others, as well as the new grass.

“I think now Valhalla puts a premium on both power and finesse,” Nicklaus adds. “I have never liked a golf course that solely suits a power game, or one that is all finesse. When you have the gift of power in your game, you should be able to utilize that strength. But if you do not have that gift, but you have developed the ability to hit the ball straight and keep it in play, you should have the opportunity to utilize that. So I think Valhalla presents a combination of both.”

Low-key PGA has lofty plans

While the PGA has much invested in how Valhalla looks and plays, it actually has remained behind the scenes by its own design, according to Kerry Haigh, the organization’s managing director of championships.

“We’ve made it a point of trying not to get heavily involved in the day-to-day management ... very much hands-off,” he says, adding that the PGA believes that Valhalla leaders like Wilson and Mike Montague, the club’s longtime general manager, know best, and he prefers to let them do their thing.

Haigh also notes that there has been a resolute purpose to the work on the course and surrounding acreage.

“I think it’s fair to say that part of the reasoning to change some things is not simply for the Ryder Cup, but for future events,” he says. “The ongoing desire is to continue to make Valhalla a very user-friendly, spectator-friendly, player-friendly facility that lends itself to hosting major championships.” 

Home-field advantage

One thing Wilson and his Ryder Cup staff (35 regular crew members and 80 volunteers, including 45 former employees) can’t do is make Valhalla’s turf red, white and blue. But they no doubt would if they could.

Grooming a Ryder Cup venue to suit the home team has become a tradition and in keeping with the event’s feverish, partisan flavor. To that end, Wilson and the American team captain, Paul Azinger, have forged an important relationship in the last year or so.

“The setup for the Ryder Cup will not be a championship setup,” Wilson says. “Azinger doesn’t want that; he wants a place conducive to good golf instead of grinding it out all day long.”

Moreover, both the captain and the superintendent make no bones about Valhalla’s conditioning favoring the U.S. side, which hasn’t won the cup since 1999.

“I’ve got a lot of decisions, including course setup,” Azinger said in a PGA of America media session earlier this year, before the American and European teams took form. “... I’ve actually spent some time with Mark Wilson and, depending on the makeup of the (U.S.) team, we’ll do everything we can to gain an edge. The PGA has given me full responsibility to kind of do whatever I want and the freedom to do what I want with respect to course setup.”

Guessing that the American team will include a mix of long hitters and strong wedge players, while the Europeans again will probably rely on their accuracy and short-game prowess, Wilson says Valhalla’s fairway landing areas probably will be widened around 300 yards down range, mostly by extending the first cut of rough a minimum of 12 feet and as much as 50 feet; the rough around the greens will be long and lush. Also, since Americans traditionally are better putters on fast greens, Valhalla’s new surfaces are expected to be slick.

“The superintendent and I understand each other. I told him I felt like he could help me and be an integral part of our success,” Azinger told the media. “We’re going to formulate a strategy based on the makeup of the team. Hopefully, we’ll get a little bit of an edge there. We’ll see.”

Superintendent on the hot seat

A native of Ohio and a graduate of the turfgrass management program at Eastern Kentucky University, Wilson established himself in the Louisville environs over the past three decades. He was an assistant at Harmony Landing and then Louisville Country Club and was superintendent at Audubon Country Club for eight years before taking the Valhalla job in 1988.

Even all that experience, plus prepping for three majors, can’t take the heat off Wilson, self-imposed and otherwise. He says the scope of a Ryder Cup these days is like no other event in the sport.

“Everybody will be watching — 28 hours of live TV, 600 million viewers in 177 countries,” he says. “In all seriousness, I pinch myself all the time. Sometimes I think it’s all gotten too big and out of control. So, yes, I feel pressure. One mishap and the whole world sees it. I’ve done my share of events, but this one is very wearing on a person.”

Haigh has been running PGA championships since 1989 and he and Wilson go back almost that far — much longer than with any other superintendent for the PGA official — and he believes his close friend will deal with yet another pressure event just fine because of who he is.

“Mark is a super person to work with; I certainly admire his skills,” says Haigh. “He’s an extremely hard worker. He has a great demeanor, a great outgoing personality that’s infectious not only in dealing with him, but also his staff. He’s a great ambassador for his profession and for the PGA as well. We’ve been through some fun times and some tough times. We have a similar work ethic — do the very best you can in everything you do.”

Terry Ostmeyer is the senior staff writer for GCM.