Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  17,000 square feet of bermuda went down again this week, getting us much closer to patching up all the winter damage. The sod is fertilized and watered immediately. The turf from last week is rooting in and will start to be mowed early next week. The rains are helping us and it is nice to see some more regular dew forming in the mornings as opposed to the dry air the last two weeks. Next week we will tackle 13 Manakin and then evaluate what is left to sod.  The local reports have rolled through and we are certainly not alone in seeing damage from winter temperatures, snow and shade. Above is an excerpt from our regional consultant who also called the damage from that winter a 1 in 10 year event. This means that replacing bermuda in the shade that didn't survive with bermuda again isn't necessarily a bad idea, especially with continued tree and drainage work. Only having to replace 1 acre out of 200 across both courses really is a decent turn out. The other 199 acres of turf ...

  We have had a handful of warm days now and it is easy to see where some bermudagrass is not greening back up. The combination of cold January temperatures and shade from trees are the simple culprit. On January 6th we got a few inches of snow. Most of it melted the next week but the shaded areas did not melt fully. Temperatures plummeted January 19th through the 22nd creating ice and direct cold stress. Four days of the high not getting above freezing and the lows dropping to single digits dinged up our shade areas.  We manage 200 acres of bermudagrass. We are going to sod out 1 acre. That is .5%. Do you want to imagine what we would look like after that winter if we had not been so diligent with tree removal and drainage work every winter? As the temperatures continue to warm and we finally get some rain, the sod will root in and we will be back to normal before the end of May.  Not a single patch of sod going down sits in a full sun situation. We do basically everythi...

  Two days out from the 125th Anniversary Gala here is your 302nd blog post in Hermitage history. This property continues to get better every day. Not many clubs can say they have been associated for more than 125 years, we are all lucky to be a part of it! We do have some unlucky bermudagrass that has struggled this spring from a tough winter. Almost everywhere that has not greened up yet is in the shade. Some areas are wet all winter and some are dry but shade continues to be the common dominator. Most spots will continue to green up but we will start laying some sod down next week in the worse areas. We budget for a tough winter so tossing a few trucks of sod out to replace weak bermuda is certainly not out of the ordinary. The fly mowers and rough mowers made their first appearance in 6 months after a long winter. We have been running irrigation into the warmer dry weather to try and keep the bermuda moving. Both courses will change quickly over the next month as soil temperatu...

  The weather decided to cooperate this week so we have been able to finish our 103rd and final bunker here on 16 Manakin. We picked up some sod and wrapped the bunker on Monday. The concrete showed up Wednesday and 5 yards was the perfect amount to finish this bunker off. Most of these guys have been here for the past 5 years of bunker work. This is the last concrete they should see for a while which was a welcome comment after 75 trucks and close to 700 yards of concrete laid. All smoothed out and ready for sand. Having 36 holes and over 100,000 square feet of bunkers be bulletproof against heavy storms and washing out is a massive benefit for our golfing membership. This is something that is easily forgotten about when 5 inches of rain comes down on a Friday night and the bunkers are playable for Saturday. The infrastructure is there now and will forever be appreciated by our team. The smaller bunker will give much better access to the green here on 16. The sand is in and tamped...

  It has been a long time since we have been rained out of an aeration but this past Monday that is just what happened. 1.5” of rain soaked the campus all day Monday so Tuesday the aerators started making noise at 5am. Just like on the Manakin, 1/4” cores were pulled out of the greens first then blown off and cleaned up.  A variety of different amendments were spread out and then the greens were topdressed heavily. Another two aerators equipped with half inch solid tines went over the dry sand and created nice channels for everything to fall into. This is at least double the amount of sand that was used in past springs which will go a long way in keeping our organic layer functioning properly and allowing water to flow down through the sand based system.  The greens are brushed in, blown off, rolled and then sprayed with a foliage fertilizer package to help them start to recover. They will not be mowed this weekend and will receive their first dry mow on Monday.  The...

  The bermuda is attempting a wake up thanks to a little bit of rain and some 80 degree temps. Cooler weather and some frost is in the forecast for next week however so the mowers are still in a holding pattern for the time being. No matter what the weather does, it is nice to see some green color out there! We are getting closer and closer to completing our bunker renovations. Another two and a half trucks of concrete were poured into the bunkers on 14 and the back bunker on 16 on Monday afternoon. These projects put stress not just on the staff but also on the equipment, the cartpaths and the surrounding turf. We are excited to be close to finishing! This week we had 9 seasonal staff return from prior years and hired just 1 new seasonal staff member. You can see the relief in the full time staffs eyes as the fresh muscles jump in to move concrete around and start to help clean up from the winter. Having so many returning staff is a major benefit for our department. New sand is be...

  The bermuda is trying to green up thanks to some periodic rains but these nighttime temperatures in the 30's are not helpful. If you are looking for any kind of quick bermuda growth while the pears, cherries and forsythia are blooming, it just is not going to happen. Soil temps will come up as they always do and we will be mowing some grass later into April. Last week the Green Committee met for the first time and we took a look here on the right of #2 Manakin. A zelkova and a red maple have been there a few years and made it difficult to not only see where a drive to the right lands but some significant erosion underneath the trees was starting to take place. The Committee agreed on some addition by subtraction. The two trees were removed, the stumps ground and both entire areas were sodded over thanks to a little extra bermuda sod from Kinloch's range tee project. Now we have an unhindered view of the giant willow oak here on #2 and you should also be able to see where your...