Llamas from Greene County have been getting a lot of attention -- international attention, even -- since they moved to North Carolina and went to work as golf caddies.
The llamas that are now caddies were born in Greene County and were featured a few weeks ago on a Greenville, S.C., TV station, which led to a story on CNN, which led to a story on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
On Sunday night, a long segment about the llamas and their work as caddies was the closing story on the NBC Nightly News.
In that segment, another Greene Countian, Seth Saylor, a member of the Mars Hill College golf team, appeared with the local llamas at the request of his coach, who is also the course pro at Sherwood Forest Golf Course in Brevard.
The Greene County part of the story started almost two years ago when Jerry and Carolyn Ayers, who operate Walnut Ridge Llamas in Chuckey, sold six llamas to Mark English, of Brevard, N.C.
Two years ago we were showing llamas at the North Carolina Mountain State Fair Llama Show. Mark English and his family came to our stalls several times viewing our llamas and talking about possibly purchasing some. He wanted to train them to become “llama golf caddies.” Mark, Bonita, and his son Eric visited our farm a few weeks later. They purchased 6 young male llamas which we delivered to their beautiful farm in Brevard, North Carolina. Two years later, the llamas are trained and working as golf caddies on local golf courses in the Western North Carolina mountains. The English family and their llama golf caddies have been featured on AC360 (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in England. Just recently the llamas were featured on the NBC Nightly News. We are proud of what Mark, Bonita, and Eric have accomplished with their llamas and we are proud of our little llama boys growing up to be famous golf caddies. Carolyn had tears in her eyes as she saw our boys on national television and said, “look at our babies.” Here is yet another answer to the age old question, “what do you do with llamas?”
Walnut Ridge Llama Farm is located in Northeast Tennessee in the beautiful Tennessee Valley with the Appalachian Mountains in full view only 15 miles away. We are easy access from all areas of the East; 65 miles northeast of Knoxville, Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; 65 miles northwest of Asheville, North Carolina; and 50 miles south of the Virginia and Kentucky borders. We are dedicated to "breeding a new generation of quality llamas" with strong conformation, a stretchy balance, and gentle dispositions. We invite you to visit our farm and share the excitement that llamas have added to our lives.
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