Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  Just like every other spring, while the redbuds, cherries, dogwoods and tall fescue are showing off, our bermuda is the ugly duckling. If you want to see where issues with shade are or where it's wet vs dry all winter, or where we sprayed post emerge herbicide for poa, or where the poa is breaking through our pre emerge, or where the most cart traffic is, then it is all on display. On this last day of March we are actually still ahead of the game in comparison to last year. Over the next few weeks we will continue to green up and the mowers will even things out quickly as our season begins! The Sabot greens are recovering nicely despite a few more nights in the 40's. The 80 degree temps next week should help close up these already small holes. The same exact process will be performed on the Manakin greens this coming Monday. On Tuesday everyone will play the front of Sabot to the front of Manakin and then Wednesday we will be back to 27 holes open. The Sabot back nine will op...

  Frozen ground in late March is never good for Bermuda. Temperatures are back and the sun has been shining so we should see things start greening up over the next few weeks. Sabot aeration started slowly earlier this week with 25 degrees reading on the thermometer. The greens thawed quickly though thanks to the sun. Because of the cool weather the Dryject machines had some trouble operating cleanly so we went ahead and bypassed that process and went straight to pulling 1/4" cores out of all 20 greens on the Sabot. The cores are easily blown off and picked up. A medium application of coarse, dry sand was laid down and brushed into the smaller holes. Our cultural practice philosophy continues to evolve, especially as these greens perform better and better each season. Aeration is all about managing our upper organic matter layer. If we can moderate the growth of the turf with less inputs during the season, our organic percentage can actually decrease. Keeping the holes small allows...

  Bermuda took it on the chin this week with multiple nights in the 20's. At least we have dried out again and some of the turf on these south facing slopes is still hanging in there. The days keep getting longer and the sun is just as high now as it is in September so the soil doesn't have much choice but to heat up as we get deeper into spring. We finished up the other side of the drainage on 17 fairway Manakin this week. These areas have dried up quickly now. We hope this bermuda that as been saturated all winter and now trampled by us putting drainage in perks back up in the next 4-6 weeks. The pipe that use for our french drains is slotted (or perforated) pipe. The pipe is covered in gravel on both sides and then in most cases now, topped with sand so we can sod over the line eventually. Water seeps down and once it hits the pipe it can move faster down towards the catch basin. The final pipe and wire is now in the ground on Sabot! The guys have had a few nice dry days to ...

  It has cooled back down again and it looks like March really isn't going to keep with the warm trend that February carried. This picture is from April 12th, 2022, so we are about a month away from getting the bermuda to wake up! Our project on 16 approach is finally complete. Our last load of capillary concrete was laid down Tuesday and the bunker was filled with sand on Wednesday.  All the new sod on the approach as been tarped in order to survive the cold coming the next few days. We were finally able to get the excavator over to 5 Sabot this week to check on the recirculation pump for the stream. The pump screen was very clogged and the bottom part of the screen was damaged. The screen was cleaned and repaired and then we added a 45 degree fitting to prop the screen up out of the muck a bit. The stream is back to flowing strong and looks great. The Manakin crew continued on with drainage this week on both 13 and 17 fairways. It is nice to finally have some sun and wind to...

  Another rain event this past Saturday put us back into our normal winter state of being soaked. The Sun peaked out a bit Sunday so we went after another drain in the middle of 3 Sabot fairway on Monday. 300 feet of 4" drain pipe was laid into the fairway landing area and hooked into a previously laid pipe on the edge of the rough that will take water down to the stream. The drain was topped off with sand and now has actually been sodded with leftover sod from the project on 16 approach. 16 Sabot approach just barely dried out by Wednesday morning. Andrew Green stopped by and gave his blessing the day before so we were ready for our first load of sod for the season. All buttoned down and ready for some warm weather. The front approach is almost double in width now. The upper area will be mowed at approach height once the sod roots in and starts growing vertically. Capillary concrete is scheduled for the bunker on Tuesday next week. Early in the week the team from EZ Locator came...