Louisville was battered by very strong winds on Sunday, the remnants of Hurricane Ike, which caused such damage in Texas. Two people were reported dead - one of them a 10-year-old boy who was hit by a branch of a tree while mowing the lawn - several injured and nearly 300,000 residents of the city and its suburbs were without electricity overnight and for much of yesterday.

While some of the thousands who are expected to make the journey to support Europe in the Ryder Cup found that their hotels in the centre of Louisville were functioning as normal, others who were staying near Valhalla Golf Club learnt that their hotels lost power in mid-afternoon on Sunday.

Valhalla, where the Ryder Cup starts on Friday morning, is about 15 miles from downtown Louisville and it took its share of punishment from winds blowing at more than 70 mph. A television tower collapsed on to the 12th green and the course and was closed in the afternoon. Trees were blown down, as were some tents.

Ryder Cup Wales officials driving back into Louisville from the course reported that a “For Sale” sign was blown off a house and landed on the roof of their car, and at one point on the journey their car was blown 15 yards across the road.

Steve Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, declared a state of emergency and officials of the Louisville Gas and Electric Company gave warning that electricity may be off “for an extended period”. The utilities company said that 75 per cent of its customers were without power on Sunday night, more than three times as many as during the tornado outbreak in April 1974. Downed trees blocked roads in Louisville and 80 schools lost power. Nearly 150 roads in metropolitan Louisville were impassable after the storm.

Strong winds had been forecast by the National Weather Service, but only of 30-45mph and not, as actually happened, nearly twice as strong.