Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  The humidity hung around a bit for the Valentine but otherwise the weather shaped up nicely for last weekend and has been gorgeous this week. The drier air helped us get the rough chopped back down to 2.25" and cleaned up for the fall. The best part about the Valentine is that we can squeeze in the fall greens aeration on Sabot immediately after. 3/8" cores were pulled out on Monday and Tuesday mornings this week. We have kept the growth rate low on the Pure Eclipse which has limited thatch buildup but pulling cores in the fall and topdressing will always help stay ahead of the bent getting too soft in season. The smaller cores are easy to blow off and there is no abrasion to the greens surface. Calcium, potassium, humic acid and some other micro nutrients are applied to the soil while we have holes open. Close to 40 tons of kiln dried sand was spread on the Sabot greens. We also took the Monday closure opportunity to solid tine aerate the greens on Manakin that do not have...

  The Valentine is here and we are just about ready. The humidity is set to drop this weekend so when the sun comes out this whole property will be shining. Thankfully Erin is pushing out to sea as forecasted. The humidity will drop from 75% to 50% overnight and fall will be here. The greens rollers are dusted off, the more aggressive fixed head mowers are back on the Sabot and we even have grooved rollers on the Manakin greens mowers. The rough is high and the greens are quick, this Valentine should be another great test for some of the areas best players.  Enjoy some pictures from the past few days and make sure to follow @thevalentineinvitational, @activeseasongolf and of course the Hermitage Instagram accounts for plenty of coverage of the event.

  The humidity is back but at least the high temperature has only gone above 90 once this month, on Tuesday this week. Our normal high for August starts at 88 and drops to 84 by the end of the month. Our warm season turf continues to love life and the greens are getting their footing back for the Valentine. All 39 greens were topdressed again on Monday with kiln dried sand. We have done this 3 times now in August and it has helped tremendously in firming the surface back up. The less aggressive triplex verticutter made its way around the Manakin approaches on Monday as well. This will most likely be the last time we verticut the latitude this year as the sun angle continues to drop. Around 40 tons of sand went down after the verticut on the approaches and on some select sod areas from this past spring. The belt topdresser is used to get close to the greens and in tight areas. All of this sand dried quickly Monday afternoon and was brushed in and any left over debris blown off. The ...

  Both courses enjoyed some time at 59 degrees this past weekend at night. Before the weekend the low had only been below 70 three or four times in the past 60 days. A nasty stretch for bentgrass and humans for sure. The bermuda is performing well though and the Latitude on the Manakin was ready for the VSGA State team matches this week. Grant had his crew ready for the week and the double tee starts. The fairways dried out nicely on Tuesday for the first round and a quick morning mow of 60 acres had the Manakin shining through the rain Wednesday. As the ladies finished up Thursday we were locked and loaded with another round of topdressing sand for the Manakin greens. We will hit them again on Monday as they start to grow a little more through some summer stress. The lower night time temps make a big difference in bentgrass health which is very welcomed as we prepare for more heat and the Valentine. With a full golf course this week in the afternoons the Manakin guys took some tim...

  Why not get clobbered with rain one more time for July!? This small storm snuck up from the south and just dropped a half inch in about 20 minutes. More is on the way and then we should see some cooler temps, especially at night over the next 7 days. We tried to beat the rain with some topdressing sand on the greens but only got through 15 on the Sabot before getting pounded the first time. Wetter sand is going out now on the Manakin which hopefully will get washed in by the next storm. Topdressing bentgrass can not be done in the heat so it has been a while since we were able to get this done. The sand helps relieve some "puffiness" of the bent in the tropical environment we have been operating in and may help slightly with ballmarks. The difference between Manakin greens with and without fans is stark now. The humidity and soil temperatures have been oppressive but the fans bring the tropical weather back down to sub tropical. It is hard to remember but the greens with fa...

  Friday July 18th at 1:30 pm it was 95 degrees with full beaming sun. Ben turned his hose off on 18 green and some sort of water hammer loosens up a pipe elbow under the Putsy tree at the Sabot putter. This is a small 2" pipe feeding two negligible irrigation zones behind the clubhouse. That 2" line however is fed right off the mainline from the pumphouse and water was blasting 20 feet into the tree and flooding the putting green. As the elbow leak was before the shutoff valve, the only way to stop the leak was to turn the entire system off and drain the pipes. This now meant we had no water pressure across the whole property. The guys quickly scrambled the water trucks that we use for flowers and sod to keep the greens cool for a few hours. The system took an hour to drain and stop leaking. Look how happy Ben is on a hot Friday afternoon. We capped the line for the time being and added some solid thrust blocks. John Gibson said some prayers for 30 minutes and then we cranke...