Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  The courses were actually drying out nicely on Monday and Tuesday. It is always great to see prior drainage work sucking down water in the winter months. As we cycle through these wet and drier times, it only makes sense to keep carts on the path in a conservative manner. This also includes remote control carts. We will have the golf shop differentiate between walking manual push carts and remote control carts on some days. These days are where it is still soaked and the remote carts can damage turf in wet swales. In general, people pushing manual carts will avoid these wet areas so we are happy to allow them out. With an absolute mess of snow and rain was in the forecast, so we hustled the entire crew back out to #2 Manakin and kept on plowing wire in on Monday. Every remaining head on 2 was dug up except for around the green. The guys even picked off a few on 3 tee and got them back filled (over 50 heads total) before the snow started to fall on Tuesday. There are less than 90 ...

  Our less than ideal winter weather continues although this is really how winter used to be. Cold, wet and gross up here is why golf in Florida and California was invented! The guys have made the most of a few sunny and thawed out days this week and crushed the irrigation wire plowing on #1. The tees on #2 are also complete and the whole left side of 2 is close to being finished as well. The digging and back filling is tough but the light at the end of the tunnel is around the corner up at 4 green. With the bunkers thawed out we were finally able to get a decent rake on them this week. And with the greens fully thawed they were rolled and sprayed with some fertilizer to perk them back up from last months nasty temperatures.  Our Thorguard horn got smashed by a pine branch in the ice and snow a few weeks ago. Sloan got the parts in and replaced the broken horn housing. Scobar, our stump contractor was out on Monday to finish grinding some stumps, mainly on the Manakin. Most of...

  The guys were happy to get back outside this week and keep moving on the Manakin irrigation project. We started on the sunny side of 14 on Monday and got about 60% of the holes dug. The remaining frozen heads thawed out more on Tuesday in the sun. 14 and the back nine in completion should be wrapped up this week. Grant has been doing a great job laying out the wire path beforehand so that everyone behind can operate smoothly. There are drain lines, irrigation pipes and fan power wires all to avoid. On to #1 next week! The few paths that we crossed with the new irrigation wire have been patched with hot asphalt. Back nine complete! The snow and ice has been slow to melt off in the shaded areas of 12 Manakin and 5 Sabot. We laid some ornamental grass cuttings on the snow on 12 in hopes that it will absorb a little more heat. Turf blankets were laid on top as well.  The guys fought through the remaining ice today so that both 12 Manakin and 5 Sabot will be back in play tomorrow...

  Temperatures have not been favorable for bermudagrass this month as we bottomed out at 9 degrees this morning. We are settling in to the 7th coldest January on record which is almost 6 degrees below normal. Last year we were 10 degrees ABOVE normal for January. The crazy artic air should start to move out tomorrow and we will be back to normal Sunday. We still have some greens and pockets of holes in shady areas that remain covered in snow and ice. 12 and 14 green on the Manakin is just about completely incased in ice. We will let golf out Sunday but these holes may remain closed as they melt off.  All 400 bunker rakes have been refurbished and are back out and ready to scrape across the frozen ice and sand. We are going to be lucky to even get the newly painted tee markers back in the ground by Sunday. The guys have been tucked in inside the shop this week finishing up tee markers, bunker rakes and cleaning up traffic posts and equipment. We are even taking some time to fix...

  You can pretty much just write off January as far as golf goes. Not until we click over to February will we see temperatures come back up to normal or above normal. We have a few greens that are less than 50% covered in snow but the majority remain pretty well buried. We will surely get some melt tomorrow but it is doubtful any turf will be ready to play on. Oh yeah go ahead and throw in an earthquake along with the cold weather. We are not sure if this was really because of tectonic plates or if it was just Joe dropping over-grown pine trees at Dominion Club. Oh well, our projects only really get slowed up by rain. Grant has his team staying warm by digging up more irrigation heads this week. The snow has burned off 16 tee and most of 15 which is right where we needed to be.  The plow actually works a little better with the top inch of turf frozen. Finishing off 16 and getting most of 15 done this week keeps us on a schedule to finish our last 9 holes by mid-March and then ...

  It has been a while since we have seen snow, especially snow combined with low temperatures. Originally the forecast was only for a week of brutally cold weather but the Polar Vortex dropped down further and we may be stuck in the snow for a few weeks here. With more snow on the way Friday night we would have to get very lucky to be able to play golf next weekend. And then there is more snow forecasted for the 21st!  It is pretty out there though. Here are some pictures and videos from the sunrise on Tuesday.  Our loblolly pines and certainly any white pines are not really built for snow and ice however. 100's of branches have snapped off and dropped down this week providing plenty of cleanup work in the cold.  One benefit of the snow is the Blue Heron being confused on where to go to the bathroom since his greens are covered up. The snow does give us a beneficial blanket to protect against the single digit night time temps. Soil temperatures early in the week wer...

We are down to about half capacity this week as the staff tries to burn up their annual allotment of paid time off before the end of the month. The sun and warmth was here as we buttoned up the irrigation wiring on 17 and also wired up the greenside of 16. The staff continues to dwindle next week as will the temperatures. Looking into 2025 we have 14, 15 and 16 tees left to wire up and then we will head to 1-4 to finish off the irrigation renovation. Bunkers remaining to be renovated on Manakin are 11, 13, 14 and 16. Despite the near term weather the forecast for the rest of winter looks mild which is very welcome! This is your 287th blog post and the 48th of this year. Since March 1st we have mowed greens (average across both courses) 176 times, rolled greens 77 times, mowed fairways 54 times and raked the bunkers 210 times. We look forward to a little break in maintenance over the winter as the focus shifts to in-house capital projects.  For 2025, the Board of Directors has appro...