MISSOULA – Natalia Arlint has been around golf nearly her entire life after her grandparents introduced her to the game at the age of 4.
“When I graduated in 2010, a year after that in 2011, I applied to be a flower girl here at the Polson Bay Golf Course, since I love to be in the outdoors and figured, ‘Hey, it sounds like a good summer job,'” said Arlint.
That summer job turned into much more. Slowly moving her way up the ladder at the golf course and attending turf management school at Rutgers finally led her to be the superintendent of Polson Bay.
All that hard truly work paid off. Arlint is now going to be on the big stage as she has been chosen as one of the 10 people on the maintenance team for the Ryder Cup Course.
“When I first heard, it was kind of a shock, didn’t really believe it, because I was like, ‘Well, didn’t really think a small-town golf course would get the chance to go,'” said Arlint.
Arlint says shes excited for all the experience she’ll gain, but is most excited for the new techniques that she’ll learn that she can possibly bring back to the Polson Bay Golf Course.
“It’s going to be really fun to meet people from one all over the U.S. and around Europe, from all those countries, to see how everything is different from where I am at compared to what they do, and then maybe possibly be able to implement some of what they do on their courses to something here that might help make our course just that much better,” said Arlint.
The 42nd Ryder Cup will be held in France from Sept. 28-30.
