Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

We have completed a pretty impressive stretch of hot weather. Soil temperatures hit the 90's and surface temperatures were easily over 110 on multiple days in a row. Perfect weather for bermudagrass but miserable weather for bentgrass. Mother Nature delivered some dramatic relief on Tuesday with cool air and slow cool rain. The change was so dramatic that some fish in the pond on 15 suffered. The hot water from the top was pushed down and the cold water from the bottom was forced up, the pond literally flipped . A shortage in oxygen from the colder water caused a number of smaller fish to give up the ghost. We hope to continue installing appropriately sized bubblers like the one on 4 Sabot so this occurrence is lessened. Similarly on the greens the hot weather had limited gas exchange on the greens. The greens were vented with small needle tines on Tuesday to try and get more air moving through the system. The greens on both sides were topdressed lightly in order to give ...

The final load of sprigs went down early this morning between 1:00 am and 5:00 am. The Modern Turf guys made a great call in firing up the planter as soon as the sprigs dropped around midnight. They beat the rain today and all the sprigs are on the ground! The sprig crew only missed 1 day out of 15 but they managed to get out 17 trailers out in 14 days. A little over 90,000 bushels of Latitude bermudagrass are now on the ground and growing. The weather has really been perfect thus far and we are probably a week ahead of where we thought we would be in getting the bermuda out which is a good thing! As the last truck of sprigs headed our way we put the first cut on #3 yesterday. The mower was set low at an inch in order to encourage some lateral growth. Everything is on us now as we begin to actually grow in the golf course. We will update again on Thursday!

Everyone absolutely got after it this week on both sides. The Sabot tees, approaches and fairways were core aerated, verticut, cleaned up, topdressed in brushed in just two days. This was really the first time a verticutter had been introduced to the Sabot fairways. The verticutter helped remove a massive amount of material that will help tighten up the canopy of the fairways as they grow back in. The crew worked extra hours on Monday and Tuesday in order to sweep and remove thatch material produced from the process. Over 200 tons of sand were applied to the fairways, approaches and tees and then brushed in. This entire process will help ensure these surfaces remain firm and healthy for the rest of the season. Here is a quick reminder to scatter your cart traffic. Don't be a lemming. Spread out and help us keep the rough consistent. Our crew continues to work tirelessly in front of the sprigging team. Every minute of the work day we are working to smoo...

The sprigging process is moving along nicely. The weather has been perfect so far, although we will see what how this thunderstorm treats us this afternoon. Holes 3, 4, 14, 15 and 16 have been sprigged. We are moving along to 17 and 18 next and then 2 and 1. Modern Turf (the sprigging company) will be working through the weekend. Making sure every inch of the Manakin is soaked behind the sprigs is quite a chore but we are keeping up. New white roots are starting to pop on #3. The warm weather, saturated soil and high soil temperatures are giving us an encouraging start. John Gibson continues to work in front of us fixing irrigation issues as they pop up. This leak was from the initial install 15 years ago. The timing isn't great for an end of a pipe encased in concrete to leak but John and his apprentice Carla get it fixed and back in order. So are we going to drain the lake keeping these sprigs wet? We are running 7 different 6 minutes cycles on each irrigation h...

There they are! That is a pile of Latitude 36 sprigs that will cover about 6 acres. The truck from South Carolina will drop one load every morning until we finish. About 16 loads is what we are shooting for. The sprigs are carried in small dump trucks out to each individual site. The sprigs are surprisingly green but that won't last long as they go through a few days of shock before they start to grow again.  Any areas that are tough to get the big planter in are hand sprigged. Hand sprigging seems to be a fine art! The hand sprig areas are cut in with a smaller tractor with disks. The sprigs are cut about 1 to 3 inches deep and then rolled over. It is nice to see some more green grass covering the Manakin. We are probably a month away from getting a mower out so don't get too excited yet. There is the big planter. On even terrain and in straight lines, this how the bulk of the sprigs will go out. We have been very lucky to get missed with mos...

Our sprigging preparations are coming to head. All of our sprigging area has been double aerated, creating holes for the sprigs to grab onto. We have also run the veritcutters through the surface to break it up and churn up some material to help keep the sprigs moist. The staff continues to work on irrigation tasks and small items such as drain leveling and general grading in the rough and along the cartpaths. Gypsum has been applied to supply some calcium to the soil and help with water infiltration. Our final herbicide, pre-emergent and insecticide spray is being applied in a staggered manner about 3 or 4 days in front of the sprigging machine. A starter fertilizer and wetting agent will also be put down just in front of the sprigs. We will start on 3 and 4 on Monday and then head over to 14 through 18 the rest of the week. Our team has worked very hard to get the golf course prepped and ready and we are very excited to start seeing some green turf on the Manakin! ...