Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  In case you thought it had been cold this month, you are correct. We will close out the third coldest May over the last 14 years in a few days. The weekend weather looks miserable enough that we may even see our current average temp drop into the 63's like 2016 and 2020. We are supposed to pick up 9 degrees from April to May and we only got 3! Good for the greens, NOT good for the bermuda!  We stripped up another 18,000 square feet of bermuda that didn't make it into 2023 early in the week.  Half of that bermuda has been replaced with turf type tall fescue. All in shaded moist areas like here behind 3 Manakin as well as behind 5 Manakin and near 5 Sabot approach. It was wonderful to have the Manakin closed two days in a row in order to solid tine aerate all the short grass. Three tractor aerators poked 3" deep holes over about 50 acres of fairways and tees. These holes will help rooting through the summer and water infiltration. The walk behind aerators got any tight ar...

  The temperatures remain cooler than normal so our bentgrass has been loving life. Roots are growing, the texture has stayed fine and green speeds have been optimal. We will be pulling tiny cores out of the back nine Sabot greens on Monday to continue help them smooth out and speed up. Right now they are about 1 foot behind the front nine in speed but that is mainly because the front nine is just too darn good to slow down.  The bermuda is trying its best to green up but it still isn't moving anywhere very quickly without a bigger jump in temperatures. 11 tees are shaded both in the morning and in the afternoon so they remain thin this cool spring. Next week we will lay down one more truck of bermudagrass in some thin areas around both courses and then one truck of tall fescue in notoriously shaded spots like behind 3 Manakin and 5 Manakin greens. An additional post emergent application for Poa control has been made over the past two weeks in all the rough. This winter was mi...

  The greatest success of the week (because it doesn't involve whining about the weather) was the installation of our new fountain on Manakin 16. The new fountain has a lower induction profile so it shouldn't get clogged up as easily as the old one. It also has lights for a pretty cool sight at night (or in the morning). Notice the steam coming off the fountain thanks to a 47 degree air temperature Wednesday morning compared to about 65 degree water temp. Soil temperatures are coming up and the bermuda is showing more promise each day. About half our annual plantings made it into the ground this week. These zinnias will fill in over the next few weeks as the weather warms. We have gotten our monies worth out of the snapdragons this year and they will be retired after Mother's Day. The purple catmint has also been showing off and will likely need to be cut back soon. Mother's Day is usually a pretty good time to not have to worry about frost anymore and to START looking ...

  The weather the last few weeks has not been in our favor for growing bermudagrass. Not far to our west 16 inches of snow dropped down about 4 months too late. We ended up with 3 inches of rain and low in the 40's after last weekend.  We are looking for at least 140 degrees after adding both the low and high temps together to get the bermuda going. We will be much closer next week as the lows get back out of the 40's. Richmond remains a very difficult area to manage turf and golf play for 12 months out of the year. There is no perfect solution but the temperatures will be here eventually for our warm season turf. Our bentgrass is loving the cool spring weather and we really could not ask for the greens to be in better shape after spring aeration. Our fertilizer and growth management programs are doing well on the greens. The leaf texture has gotten extremely fine and is allowing for more consistent and quicker green speeds. The back nine Sabot greens will be lowered another ....