Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

The weather was perfect this week for our annual verti-cutting and topdressing of the Manakin short grass. Everyone was moving quickly on Monday and we started out by scalping all the tees, approaches and fairways down about .150" lower than their normal mowing height. We also scalped down one single pass around the bentgrass greens in an effort to kill any remaining Poa annua in the collars.  The triplex verticutter took care of all the turf around the greens where the big machines could not get into. The big machines took to the other 50 acres of Latitude short cut and took all three days to get around. The vertical blades rip through the existing thatch of the bermuda and pull up a hefty amount of material. As the bermuda grows, dead stems and leaves contribute to the thatch layer and the turf as a whole can become puffy and scalp at a normal mowing height. Employing the verticutters mid season allows us to produce a quality surface for the rest of year. David ran the dethatchi...

The bermuda really jumped out of the ground this past weekend thanks to yet another mid afternoon thunderstorm on Saturday that dropped 1.3 inches of rain in short time. The Latitude on the Manakin is just starting to get a little puffy and scalpy so our scheduled verticutting and topdressing for next week is right on time. The Manakin will remain closed Monday through Wednesday next week as we work to get all 50 acres of short grass verticut and then topdressed with sand. This process will set the stage for the rest of the growing season and enable us to keep the bermuda looking and playing great. This past Monday saw a few more projects get knocked off the list. Joe cut 3 new drainage lines in on 11 blue Manakin. The tees on the Manakin are internally drained but they are supposed to have 4-6 inches of sand on top. This tee on 11 just has two inches of sand on top of the red clay. The water can infiltrate the sand but then it just sits on top of that clay and doesn't go anywhere....

  It is bermuda season so it really should not be a surprise that the warm season turf is thriving. 90 degrees, humid and plenty of moisture in the soil means we are in great shape. We are just starting to firm up a bit in time for some more thunderstorms this weekend. Try to remember next March when it is 48 at night and 70 during the day what today feels like so then there is no question as to when the bermuda will start growing! With the bermuda growing nicely we felt comfortable going after some summer weeds, mainly goosegrass. These thinner areas from the spring are more susceptible to weed breakthrough. The earlier we can take the goosegrass out, the more time the bermuda has to get filled in and ready for the winter. Areas here like 16 fairway really have about half the growing season that a fairway like 10 or 18 has on Sabot.  Selective herbicide (actually 5 different chemistries) was applied Monday to select areas and it is easy to see yellowing of the bermuda today. ...

  Last Saturday nights 1" of rain set us up for a great holiday weekend and subsequent short week. Our growth regulators are doing their job on all our fine cut surfaces and we have been able to just barely keep up with mowing. We had everything dialed in nicely for the 81st Tommy Galloway until a pretty intense thunderstorm popped up with a few holes left in the first round. Almost and inch of rain fell inside of 30 minutes. Pretty much every green was under water for a few minutes. Eventually the sand cavity filled up and the water started draining quickly out the bottom. Thank goodness for our greens fans. With the sun out this afternoon it is an absolute steam bath where ever the fans are not blowing. Speaking of fans, no one should really be turning these fans off during the day. The absolute most rotten thing a golfer can do is turn the fan off, and then not turn it back on! On the newest fans we can prevent the golfer from turning them off but on the ones that a few years o...