Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  26 degrees this morning! The frost is down and the bermuda is done. We are about 15 days later seeing this hard frost than last year. Now we will get to find out exactly what the bluegrass is doing on the Sabot. Unlike last year, the bermuda has persisted late into the year and we didn't have the chance to really slow it down like last year. The bluegrass will be thinner and once the bermuda turns off color we will determine if and how we can push the blue along. The Manakin will turn brown over the next few weeks and stay that way. The paint from last year looked ok but that $20k is better utilized during the growing season.  Our big project for the week was taking down a few more pines to the left of 10 Sabot. From the green on 10 you now have a full unimpeded view of the lake. We have continued using the water wick machine in the fairways as well. #1 and #6 were sliced this week. Next week we will start digging in french drains that connect the sand lines straight into the dra

  After a nice dry start to November we have once again gotten crushed by rain. After 11 dry days the Sabot was just finally starting to dry out. Now, the fairways are literally unplayable and walking on them brings up straight mud. Hopefully the sun dries things up a little bit on Friday and we can let play back out on Saturday on the Sabot. Either way, carts will be on paths for a long time and even push carts coming off the path will be doubtful through the weekend. Water is headed towards Kinloch as fast as possible. We made a number of preparations this week for the rain, the simplest being putting out straw bales and sand bags in normal problem areas where massive amounts of water run. We had already made the decision to solid tine aerate the Sabot fairways starting Monday. We poked all the fairways about 4 inches deep and finished up Tuesday.  The deep tine aerators went out to the wettest fairways on the Sabot and poked 8 inch deep holes. Both of these processes will encourage

  Manakin greens aeration was knocked out quickly on Monday. The deep tine aerators went across the green first, poking 8 inch deep holes through the upper profile. The walk behind core aerators came quickly behind and pulled out a 3/8" core. This is only the second time we have pulled a core on these greens this year. With covid pushing all our golf events to the fall, we obviously wanted to wait until those were over before we punched again. Here is the reason we pull cores. This layer of dark anaerobic soil just under the surface of the greens is what causes them to thin in the summer and also what holds us back from pushing the greens hard for speed through the middle of the season. This layer is caused from skipping aerations and pushing the greens at the wrong times resulting in thin, unhealthy turf. In the last year and a half we have deployed as many different cultural practices as possible to alleviate this layer and give you the healthiest surfaces possible to putt on. B