Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

 

 The weather lately has been about as Virginia as it gets. We went from conditions frozen solid like a rock, to a week of temperatures in the 80s with a high pushing near 90, and now we’re looking at snow falling on Friday. It certainly keeps us on our toes this time of year. We successfully completed all of our summer pre-emergent applications and sprays targeting poa in the bermudagrass. Interestingly, we’ve seen quite a bit of green bermuda popping this week. While it’s encouraging to see some life of spring, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the upcoming cold snap doesn’t turn that green grass purple for a bit. Bunker detailing continues on both courses. Recently, the team began brushing some of the compacted sand in the lower areas of bunker surrounds. This work will continue as we move through the spring. Tree work is also nearing completion for the season. We only have a few more removals scheduled before we call it finished for the year. One of the projects complet...

 This week started a little cold and a lot wet. Things are finally starting to turn, and we’ve now had two straight afternoons where short sleeves were the uniform of choice. The heavy fog this morning didn’t help with drying things out, but we’re hopeful to soon have both golf courses completely out of CPO for the first time in quite a while. Grant has been working hard on his creek project on #14 at Manakin. After quite a bit of digging, a Facebook rock purchase, and about a pallet of concrete, things are starting to come together. He has a bit of dredging left to do and a few minor adjustments, and it should be just about wrapped up. We understand that periods of CPO can sometimes lead to more unfilled divots in the fairways, so we sent out a little help this week. Please remember to fill your divots, especially now that carts are back on most of the fairways. We also finalized bunker adjustments on Sabot this week. We still have the back nine to work through on Manakin, but w...

  Things are starting to dry out… just a little at the Herm! And just in time for another round of rain. Both courses were extremely wet this past weekend and through the start of this final week of February. Despite the conditions, the maintenance team accomplished quite a bit. Wire has now been pulled on #18, #9, and #15 on the Manakin for the new fans. We’re nearing the stage of testing voltages to ensure everything is dialed in and ready for summer. It’s encouraging to see this project moving closer to the finish line. Last week’s collar spray is already showing great results on the poa in the collars. We also took advantage of a slightly drier window to get all the short grass on Manakin sprayed for pre-emergent. The goal is to have all pre-emergent applications completed at least three weeks prior to green-up. While green-up in 3–4 weeks may be optimistic, we don’t want to get squeezed trying to apply products during unpredictable weather patterns like we’ve been see...

  Wednesday marked a milestone for 2026 as the golf course finally thawed and reopened after 26 consecutive days of closure. While the course remains saturated from snow melt and 1.6” of rain this week (and growing), both courses are holding up reasonably well. The Sabot tends to stay wetter and is more prone to tracking from cart traffic, largely due to the Vamont Bermuda. It is an older, thinner variety—especially during winter dormancy—which makes it more susceptible to damage this time of year. Latitude on Manakin handles excess moisture better because of its much denser turf canopy.   That being said, both courses are extremely wet right now. One thing we are careful to avoid this time of year is opening bentgrass greens while they are partially frozen. After an extended freeze, the top inch can thaw while the middle of the greens cavity remains frozen. This creates soft, mushy conditions until the entire rootzone thaws and water can properly drain through the profile...

 Hard to believe that we haven’t seen any golf played across the Hermitage campus in 20-plus days. The snow and ice storm that hit us at the end of January is still making its presence known, even today, with signs of the lingering ice around both courses. We’ve finally had a couple of “nice” days well above freezing, allowing the ice to begin melting and slowly working its way down into our catch basins. Anything that continues to receive direct sunlight has done a great job of thawing out, allowing us to finally check on some of our dormant bermudagrass turf  like here on #9 Manakin. You can see that there is almost no ice remaining at the beginning of the fairway, while the forward section still remains frozen solid. We still have a long way to go, but we’re hopeful this warming trend continues and helps clear out the remaining effects of the Arctic storm so we can put it behind us for the rest of the winter. All three of these pictures were taken on the same day over on th...

A few of us traveled down to Florida for the week to attend the annual Golf Course Industry Show. The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, or (GCSAA), hosts a national conference every year in February, filled with educational seminars, a golf tournament, a trade show, and networking events throughout the week. It’s a great opportunity to stay current with industry trends and standards. We had hoped to escape some of the cold weather we’ve been dealing with back home, but even in Florida we ran into frost delays on both courses we played on Monday and Tuesday. Winter certainly hasn’t been kind to anyone this year. While we did see some frost in Florida, it really didn’t compare to the temperatures here. Below freezing temperatures as the daily high have seemed almost normal here in recent weeks. Unfortunately, until the ice/snow melts, both courses will remain closed. Looking ahead, next week brings some temperatures above 50 degrees, but may be followed up with more win...