Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  With the driest October on record (can't be drier than 0" of rain) the leaves have gotten crispy up in the trees. The wind started howling yesterday and the oaks are starting to let loose. Normally it takes to the end of November to get all the leaves down but we may finished with them by Thanksgiving this year. The dry weather and lack of bermuda growth has simplified bunker maintenance this month for sure. The Manakin crew was able to edge the bottoms of their bunkers and get that 1" lip re-established this week. Next week they dive back into bunker renovations. November is here and that means a new Capital budget so it is project time. This winter we are aiming to complete all the Manakin bunkers with new drainage, liners and sand. On Monday we will start digging out 18 greenside bunkers and work backwards from there until it gets too cold to pour concrete. The remaining bunkers are 11, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18. Once the weather turns colder we will slow down on bunkers

  October will always be the best month of the year if you are involved in golf. Crisp, clear mornings bring the stars back out, the moon is out all day long, it never rains, no humidity and 80 degrees supply perfect conditions for golf. No overseeding, no aeration, no ballmarks, just golf! Not to say we aren't getting plenty of work done as the cool dry weather absent of frost is prime time for maintenance as well. It is hard to resist tossing a tiny bit of sand on the greens. Sabot was done last week and Manakin got a dusting this past Monday. The greens are putting beautifully and without any rain in the forecast should remain pleasantly firm for the foreseeable future. Grant has had this drainage project around 14 silver tee on the list for a while now and since we were closed until 1 on Monday the Manakin guys got after it.  The trencher cut in a number of lines for subsurface pipe, gravel and sand to fill back up. We also hit 3 different irrigation pipes that were untraceable

  We know the crew at CCV is happy that frost has yet to form this week. The forecast temps have been 39/40 but we have been coming in to 42 degrees each morning. A few of us have been helping out in the early mornings for the Dominion Energy Classic. The River Course looks fantastic! Hopefully we can make it through the next few days and keep the frost away because next week again looks amazing and we don't mind the leaves hanging in the trees a little longer. We have started swapping out the summer annuals with our winter plantings. Not much more than snapdragons and dusty millers go in the ground this time of the year. Anything else just becomes rabbit and deer food! Dunstano and Carlos have been making some headway on their mechanics shop renovation. The second lift is in place and ready to be wired up. They are certainly enjoying the added space by moving the parts room to where the old lockers were. We are patiently waiting for November 1st to roll around so we can get moving

 The golf courses are in beautiful shape once again thanks to some sun and finally some wind. Enjoy while you can and before the leaves really start coming down!

  The last two weeks have now been quite wet on the golf course. We accumulated a little over 3.5" of rain this week from left over bands of rain from Helene. In the last 90 days we have only had two other days where we received over an inch of rain at a time, let alone 3. Of course we are no one where near what people in the true path of Helene are dealing with, 20" of rain and hurricane force winds. We should consider ourselves lucky that we are still out here playing golf and have a house to go home to. Mushrooms have been popping up in peoples lawns and on the golf course also. The wet, cloudy weather is a perfect breeding ground for fungus. Again, be thankful we are managing mostly bermudagrass. Cool season courses are ringing up the fungicide budget this year for sure. The golf course was looking fresh and beautiful after the mowers were forced to stay in the shed for 5 days. Since our dry and cool spell in early September the warm nights have come back along with some

  We are still out here mowing a ton of bermudagrass at the end of September. The warm nights and constant moisture have everything looking plenty green as we head in to October. After this next hurricane comes through we will be back to some normal fall weather with cooler nights and drier air.  The constant mist yesterday allowed us to see everyone's traffic patterns in real time. This spot on 1 green Manakin between the green and the bunker has always been a high traffic area but we probably didn't realize how high traffic it really is. We have been supplying extra nutrients here and it actually looks decent this season. As we go dormant this area will most likely be blocked off. Some courses go so far as promoting taking the push carts across the greens surface in order to spread wear........not a terrible thing in the cooler months. The guys ground through the drizzle the past two days and got a few more areas of cart path patched up with hot asphalt mix. In the new capita

  With a low pressure system bearing down and packing plenty of rain for Tuesday, we setup all three aerators and knocked the Manakin greens out before 3:00 on Monday. 1/4" cores were pulled out of the greens profiles, removing a little bit of thatch and gunk build up, making way for some clean coarse sand. The cores were quickly blown off and picked up by a team of 8 people while the rest of the crew mowed fairways and approaches on both courses in preparation for the rain. Our normal calcium, potassium, humic acid and zeolite clay amendments were spread out and then dry sand was laid on top and brushed in. The greens were rolled out and the storm dropped a slow 1.5 inches of rain on top, washing the sand in nicely. The greens will be  mowed tomorrow and either rolled or mowed through the weekend. This will be our final core aeration until March of next year! Behind the mowers Monday we were also able to put out our fall potassium application to help the bermuda build up some str