LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Officials suspended play at Valhalla Golf Club for nearly an hour Tuesday morning because of a weather warning, telling spectators to seek shelter after sirens sounded.
Around 10 a.m., fans were told to evacuate to the Main Bus Terminal to take shuttles back to the Kentucky Expo Center.
Several attendees told WHAS11 News they had no plans of leaving, with thousands of fans around the course scrambling to find cover from the rain.
“The signs are saying weather warnings and to seek shelter,” one spectator told me. “But we’re trying to figure out exactly where shelter is.”
Just past 10:15 a.m., WHAS11 News saw a sea of umbrellas walking through the 13th fairway.
"They told us to go to the buses,” another fan said. “But we’re just going to hang out here.”
Matthew Murdoch and his kids, in lockstep with dozens of people, headed to one of the nearby market stations to wait out the warning.
“We shuttled here from the Expo Center,” Murdoch said. “No one’s told us anything about where to go. So we’re just trying to get some food.”
Fans were packed under the cover of the 13th Fairway Market, huddled shoulder to shoulder.
But officials told them they couldn’t stay there. They said the fans needed to head to the shuttles. They even roped the market area off at one point.
Some attendees were confused about the decision.
“I mean that’s kind of silly to walk all the way back, especially if there’s going to be lightning maybe,” Jeanie Deskins said.
Jeanie and her husband Lowell Deskins, who live in St. Matthews, were confident the conditions would turn around quickly.
“If you can get Ben Pine to clear things up by say 11:30 or 12, we got another four hours of watching it so we’re good,” Lowell Deskins said.
Overall, the rain was short lived.
Valhalla course superintendent John Ballard estimated just a tenth of an inch so far.
But there could be more soggy weather on the way, potentially testing the course’s drainage system.
“Before the tournament specifically, we went to all those catch basins and made sure they were cleaned out, flowing good – knowing we could get some rain,” Ballard said. “If we got things on putting greens, [we can look at] squeegeeing off water, some different things like that.”
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