Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  All 19 fans are up and running now across our 39 greens. As temperatures rise into July and August (especially at night) these fans help keep the bentgrass about 10 degrees cooler which is right along the margin of life and death. The pure eclipse seems to be hitting its stride however as the temperatures go up. On 7 Sabot we poked the same holes that the Manakin received last week. After the modifications here there are a few spots that still need some time to smooth out. This quick aeration, blow and roll should help it along and keep these bumps from scalping. The sod work at the entrance is finished up and will root in quickly. 16 tee is also sodded over with Latitude bermuda. It is amazing how bad this sod looks from the sod farm and after getting transported on a truck about 60 miles. It is either pay more for good looking sod or just wait a week for this sod to figure itself out which results in having more funds for.......more sod. Our sprayer building is now insulated an...

  This was our big week on the Manakin to get all of our cultural practices done. Once again on the greens we just used the small 1/4" coring tines to pop out some organic matter and help ensure we can keep the air and water moving through the greens profile through the summer. The largest task was verticutting and topdressing all 55 acres of short grass.  The small plugs are easily blown off the greens and picked up. The greens were very lightly topdressed and very lightly brushed in. Playability should be totally acceptable for the weekend. Roots on the Manakin are in great shape going into the summer. The green surfaces themselves have never looked better. The cumulation of all our different practices over the past few years are coming together nicely. Both of our verticutters took all 3 days to work their way through all the fairways, tees and approaches. Making a run at the thatch on the Latitude is absolutely necessary as we head into the deep summer.  All the tees,...

  The weather was on our side for the Men's Member Guest and we were happy to put out a pretty solid test of golf last Thursday through Saturday. We paid for it Sunday though when over 3 inches of rain came down hard and fast, saturating the turf and destroying any non rebuilt bunkers on the Manakin. Even the new bunkers had a lot of silt in them that all required a lot of work to clean out and put back together on Monday. Summer is here now so this week we started getting the greens fans back on the course. This year we will have a total of 19 fans helping us keep the bentgrass cooled off on steamy days. Of all the tricks we employ on the greens via aeration, fungicides and fertilizers, the fans are the end all be all in making sure these greens with any kind of air flow restriction around them stay alive and playable. Of the 19 fans, 4 are new for this year. 10, 14, 16 and 17 Sabot will have fans on them now. This week we plowed in over 3,000 feet of electric cable in order to po...

  Our new flagsticks and cups finally arrived about 10 days ago. The sticks are the thinner half inch models that should allow 1% or so more putts to drop if you are still putting with the pin in. The bottom black stripe has been custom made to measure 24" from the bottom of the stick. The previous 31" was a little generous for giving putts! The new greens on the Sabot continue to smooth out and roll nicely. The rooting is a strong as it can be so they are more than ready for the summer. Next week we will start bringing the fans back out onto the course and plowing the new wire in for the new fans on 10, 14 and 16 Manakin. Next Tuesday we'll also look to sod out some of the worst areas on 12 and 13 fairway Sabot while the old vamont continues to push through the dead Poa annua. In 11 days we begin the process of verticutting and topdressing the Manakin fairways, as well as performing some kind of venting to the greens. Golf Course Maintenance never stops! The Manakin team...

  The rains last week and temperatures this week have us ready for another bermudagrass growing season. The Latitude on the Manakin has snapped into shape quickly. Joe and his team have been working hard on the bunkers this spring. They have all been edged back close to their original edge, some almost coming back 2 feet. A sharp edge has been cut in on these bottom borders providing a clean look. The 1 inch or so deep edge should also help the ball jump down and into the bottom of the bunkers. The Sabot front nine fairways have been in great shape all spring thanks the fact that we never tried to overseed them and we could stay on top of the pre-emerge applications. The big sprayer was out today along with the smaller 200 gallon unit. They sprayed all the fairways in under 4 hours which is easily a record. The larger 500 gallon sprayer can now make it all the way through 9 holes, resulting in just one fill up to knock out the back nine. We applied growth regulator and some iron to...