Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  Another massive low pressure system dropped two inches of rain on Sunday but that didn't slow down progress on the Manakin two wire system install. The soil has gotten a little crusty on the top but nothing that stops a shovel or our plow.  Another 70 heads were dug up here on 8, wired up and backfilled this week. The rough heads that run through the oaks on the right of the hole will need a trench cut for their new wire which will happen in the next two weeks or so. We plan to get the roller back out on 10 and 8 on Friday and smooth everything out again. 11 is up next after the rough on 8 is completed. That will leave 5, 6, 7, 12 and 13 to be done in the new year. The two par 3's in there will be a welcome change! The paddle sports permit did come through just after we posted the blog last Thursday. Luckily the county inspector was able to meet Friday morning to approve our silt fence and let us get moving finally. The stumps were the first thing in the way so we got the exc

  The week started off extremely saturated with a "beautiful" snow sitting on top of 2.7" of rain from Sunday night and early Monday morning. We stuck with our plan of starting to wire up around 10 green though and kept on moving. There are only so many boring pictures you can take of digging 70 holes in a week and then filling them back in with a new wire path. The guys are out here grinding away and making it happen. The sun has been out all week now and if it is any consolation the temperatures are perfect for some serious manual labor. We knocked out 80 more heads this week which leaves just 462 left to go! Out of 67 heads on #10, 22 of them did not work because of previous wiring issues. Finding all these heads and getting them wired up to the new system is extremely gratifying.  We had to cross the power wires for #10 green fan 4 times this week. The fan gets its power from behind 18 green. Starting at the green and working towards the tee has helped reduce the imp

  As we have discussed, really over the past two years on the Blog, the Manakin irrigation wiring system has been failing at an unacceptable pace. Installed in 2003, every one of the 1200 heads on the Manakin has a dedicated red station wire and then another common wire hooked to it. The wires are run back to the gray satellite boxes around the course and the boxes communicate via radio back to the shop. So wherever a head is, a red wire runs back from the head to a satellite. This means there are miles of red signal wire in the ground and over the past two years it has begun to fail and break and cause major headaches in the way of repair.  After watching the new Sabot irrigation system go in the ground we felt confident that employing the same electrical system on top of the existing piping and sprinkler heads would be a smart move and allow us to push a full scale irrigation system renovation down the road a bit. This upgrade for the entire Manakin will only cost $300k where a full