Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

It is a short holiday week with most of our crew on vacation but we wanted to take advantage of some beautiful weather. With temperatures well above freezing we were able to get the Capillary concrete installed in the chipping green bunkers. This aggregate concrete is laid out at a 2 inch depth and then just lightly rolled smooth. The mix comes out of the concrete truck and then brought to the bunker with our dump utility vehicles. The 10 yards of mix is hand shoveled and raked into place. The mix stacks up nicely no matter the slope. The aggregate will drain at almost 100 inches of water per hour. The idea is that the rain can travel through the fresh bunker sand and then enter the capillary concrete and move into the french drain at the bottom. With the water moving through the aggregate, the sand won't be displaced by any rain like in the past. This means virtually no more washouts, reduced maintenance demand, and extremely consistent bunker play. We left open ...

Painting is finished on the Manakin. The extra black in the mix helped. We will see how it holds up with the weather over the winter. Mechanic's new work bench is up and running. This green lean-to building in the middle of our shop area mainly served as a leaf catch. It's gone and has opened up our shop area very nicely. We will have much better flow through the yard and more flexibility in where we place implements. The building will be replaced in a few years through the capital program with a proper building. Our old cart fleet was lined up and traded in this week. The new Yamaha fleet is outstanding. These carts have more room, better suspension, and more power for getting things done. Not to mention the glorious comfort of having a roof and a windshield to deflect whatever mother nature throws at us. The crew is ecstatic to be afforded these new rides! This cart fleet is even built into the operating budget now and does not impact the capital p...

With a pretty good dose of rain on Monday and some low temperatures we turned our focus to some projects at the Maintenance Facility. Our upper shop building has a good footprint but hasn't really been utilized that well. We went after Carlos and Dunstano's work station. It was hard to get them to agree to change something that they have worked with for almost 20 years, but I think they will like this better. Outside we finished clearing out under this "structure" that used to house the gas and diesel tanks. The fuel tanks were moved to a more central location this past spring and they have worked well. This area just turned into a catch all and was blocking more parking and general flow. Into the dumpster it went. We will hopefully pour a concrete pad here when the weather warms back up a bit. The guys started working on our next set of bunkers rakes to eventually make it out onto the Sabot this spring. The rakes are sealed up with Polyurethane...

Even after close to 3/4" of rain on Sunday we were able to get the greens aerated on the Manakin on Monday. 1/4" cores were pulled out of the upper 2.5 inch profile. Our organic matter tests were very indicative of the need to continue managing the top layer of our greens. The key to firm, healthy and consistent putting surfaces through the season relies on this upper end of the profile to be lower on organic matter. The cores were simply blown off and then scooped up with a shovel. The greens were rolled and brushed by hand to knock down any remaining sand. The holes are certainly visible but have very little impact on ball roll. Overall this is a minimally invasive process that serves our greens profiles well going into the winter. The bluegrass on the Sabot is looking great. While still thin in spots, the surface is holding up and taking up enough water to continue letting carts out in most areas. Originally as we planned out the Manakin re-grassing ...