Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  With such pleasant weather the holiday's are coming up fast. The team continues to churn out projects as we head towards the end of the month. The deep tine aerators sped across the greens at .9 mph early this week. Half inch diameter tines went about 8 inches down into the profile. These holes help create more air space for root growth and water infiltration. The greens were rolled twice this week and then mowed so ball roll now is not impacted. The tee surround on 3 black tee and the surround for the new black tee on 5 Sabot we sodded with zoysia last Friday. This will most likely be the last bit of sod from a sod farm for a while as we enter the depths of winter. The biggest project for the week was installing more drainage around 16 Sabot tees. This area is nasty old gray clay that water will never move through. Another 400 feet of drain pipe was laid in and then topped off with gravel and sand. The new greens on the front of the Sabot are looking great. Rooting has been impr...

  We have been waking up the neighbors for the past two weeks over on 16 Sabot. This week it wasn't just the wood chipper, it was the trencher. First thing Monday we cut a 400 foot long trench on the right edge of the fairway to help catch runoff from the properties to our west. From there we tied the trench back down to existing drain basins in the middle of the fairway. We borrowed a smaller tractor mounted trencher that throws the soil directly into the trailer to help quickly cut in some lateral lines. Each trench was filled with gravel, perforated pipe and then capped off with sand. We will probably end up sodding some of this area in the spring but for the most part these lines will fill in over the summer just like they did on 8 Sabot last year. All in all about 800 feet of pipe went into the ground this week on 16 fairway. Click here for a higher resolution panoramic of the action.  More trees continued to fall off the edge of the wood line here on 16 this week as wel...

  The dry weather has kept us very productive this "off season" so far. On Monday Ben and Sloan took the excavator over to 5 approach and cut in a new drain here. The new bermuda approach did well here last season but some extra drainage in the bottom will help it through any wet periods. The trench was filled up with gravel, pipe and sand and then sodded back over. The greens are looking great and rooting in very well.  It is difficult to pull any sod back up at all as we cross over the 1 month mark. Here are a couple of interesting photos from the nursery. We have saved some bentgrass sod and kept it growing on plastic just in case we needed it. This is the old L93 from 8 green. It has been dry and in true nursery area form, this sod has been neglected. Not much rooting going on with the L93. The extra pieces of Pure Eclipse have had the same amount of water as the L93 and still look great. And the rooting is strong! This is what you are getting in the new greens, new genet...

  We have had some great sunrises this week as a few different weather systems have moved through. None of which have brought any kind of significant rain, leaving November with just .27" of rain so far. The irrigation guys are loving the weather, as are we for as far as projects go. The bluegrass on the Sabot is yearning for a little precipitation but that is just the way it goes. The dry weather has meant that the dormant vamont on the front of the Sabot is still looking great. This is no contest against any kind of overseed at the moment. We will keep monitoring over here as the winter rolls on, as inevitably we are going to some rain. The mainline piping has now reached the bridge on 8. Since we are keeping our old system on for a few more weeks, the new pipe will stop at the bridge and then start again on the other side. We are able to reuse the pipe attached the bridge since it was already an HDPE pipe. The size of the irrigation crew will continue to grow in size after the ...

  The new greens have absolutely loved this pleasant fall weather. No frost on the bentgrass, no rain and sunny days have kept the roots digging into our profile. All the greens were hand rolled this week in preparation for their first mowing. Dunstano got the inaugural cut on the putting green at a height of .200". All the greens mowed out nicely and may be ready for the big roller next week. We may drop the height slightly over the next few weeks but the turf will stay relatively high through the winter. The beginning of March should give us some more weather to start dialing things down to putting height. 30,000 more square feet of sod was delivered this week so that we could button up our projects on 7, 8 and 9. The newly raised up pond bank in front of 7 green was sodded with "Innovation" zoysia grass. The new collar on 8 was sodded to bermuda and then zoysia on the bank. The new slope combined with some velcro like zoysia should stop "good" shots from rol...