Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

So far, winter weather has remained undefeated. We’ve now had 18 straight days where daytime highs failed to reach 50 degrees, and overnight lows have dipped below freezing on 17 of those days. Last Friday’s quick snowstorm cleared out just in time for mother nature to drop another five inches across the club, keeping the courses closed for most of the week.  Today, we were able to open the front nine of the Manakin course and the back nine of the Sabot course. With another round of winter weather forecasted for Sunday morning, we’re hoping to dodge the worst of it. Continued snowmelt today should allow us to have both courses open for the weekend. We’ve been waiting on the arrival of our ground poles for the new fans that will be installed around most of the remaining Manakin greens. The plan was to begin setting poles early this week, but the weather had other ideas. We’ll head out next week and get as many poles in the ground as conditions allow, with plans to continue the work ...

Post Thanksgiving week began with stump removal on both courses. We continue to contract out this work for efficiency and cost. There isn’t enough justification to spend roughly 60k on a stump grinder to keep on property when we can bring in a stump removal service three times a year for a fraction of the cost. This approach allows us to keep removing trees as needed until enough stumps accumulate for our contractor to make a full day of grinding stumps on the property. Afterward, our team cleans up the grindings which fully completes the tree-removal process. Continuing on the tree-removal topic, we were finally able to take down the last tree needed for the Department Maintenance team. If you remember from a couple posts back, we had to remove several trees next to their building. This was to make room for a new lean-to that will be used to store the smoker and a few other miscellaneous items. This added storage space will be a great benefit to their department and the club as a whol...

 The first signs of winter weather hit us earlier in the week. We’re still over a month away from the winter solstice, when winter officially begins, but it certainly felt like it had arrived. The cold weather settled in a bit earlier than expected, and while we didn’t break any historic low temperatures, it sure didn’t feel that way for anyone out on the golf courses. Looking at the forecast, we still have plenty of time to enjoy some good golf weather before Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, things are cooling down here at Hermitage Country Club.  With the cold weather that decided to sit over us Tuesday morning, we opted to keep a handful of guys around the shop to tidy up a few things. We were able to pressure wash two of the equipment storage facilities that had accumulated plenty of dust over the years. We also added a fresh coat of paint to a couple of adjacent walls and made good use of our Hermitage stencil as well. Keeping these areas clean helps maintain a more profession...

 This week began with a pre-emergent application around every putting surface at the club. We have to use a different pre-emergent herbicide around the green complexes to prevent any potential injury to the bentgrass greens. This product is also applied on some slopes where irrigation or rainwater may flow downhill into areas where we do not want the product to end up. On most green complexes, this product is applied with our smaller sprayer only utilizing the center and right boom, allowing us to work efficiently around the greens. Next week, we’ll tie these treated areas together with a different pre-emergent to cover the remaining rough sections and ensure consistent control throughout the course. This application must be followed by about a half inch of rainfall or irrigation to properly activate the product. Having both courses closed on Monday makes for a smooth application and gives us plenty of time to run the irrigation heads immediately afterward. The following night...

We had our first frost on the bermudagrass last Friday morning. While it didn’t delay play, it certainly set up on the Latitude enough to start putting some of our bermudagrass around the property to sleep for winter. Dormancy is now officially underway for the bermudagrass as we head deeper into the fall season.  As the bermudagrass starts to lose its color, our green divot sand does not! We’ll begin phasing out the use of the green divot mix for the winter months ahead and transition back to our regular Kyanite sand until we start to green up in the spring. Over on the Manakin, we took advantage of the last Monday of the month to get out a much-needed light topdressing. Having the course closed and outing-free made it much easier to work this into the schedule. With rain in the forecast later in the week, it was a no brainer to get a light dusting on the greens and let the rain wash it into the canopy. The sand helps create a smoother surface, improves firmness, minimizes ball ma...

Sunday’s storm packed some gnarly wind, knocking down a few branches across the property including this tree on 16 Sabot. We didn’t get as much rain as expected, but the wind definitely made up for it. The crew was able to get everything cleaned up and get out of the way before Mondays outing.  Rosa and Angela have been busy decorating most of the campus entrances with our fall displays, bringing a true seasonal feel to the property. Temperatures continue to drop, and with that, so do the leaves. Almost every morning, we’re greeted by two beautiful golf courses blanketed with leaves, sticks, pinecones, and other debris. Our all-star crew is out well before sunrise with backpack blowers, debris sweepers, and turbine blowers to get the courses cleaned up and looking their best for another busy day of golf. The team continues to handle it with great efficiency and pride. We took a couple of guys over to dress up a much-needed area on 18 Manakin. I’m sure everyone’s grown tired of...