Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  It is possible to have too much of a good thing, and in our case now it is rain. We made it through the June drought without much issue but when the rain keeps falling out of the sky we can only rely on existing drainage instead of the irrigation system.  Rain has gotten our moisture levels back up as well as the lake level. While the bermuda can take either dry or wet, the bent starts to get tired when saturated conditions persist. Daily mowing and golfer traffic combined with high nighttime temps and high humidity put a burden on the bents ability to photosynthesize and respire (read: stay alive). The fans are a massive help in reducing leaf moisture and humidity on the greens. This is easily a year where you could justify a fan on every green, especially the putting greens! With rain on the way this week, Amelia and I snuck out of the house on Sunday night and were able to spread some sand on the Manakin greens. Topdressing this time of the year helps the surface dry up a...

  A few sunny 100 degree days were just what we needed to get our annual verticutting and topdressing done on the Manakin. We are smack dab in the middle of bermuda growing season now and the Latitude was just starting to get aggressive and scalpy. This procedure helps thin out the turf and ensure a quality surface for the rest of the season. The first step is taking off some extra leaf material with the mowers, scalping the turf down slightly. The verticutters followed behind the mowers and cut lines just shy of 1 inch down in to the thatch layer. Since the bermuda grows laterally, each cut on a stolon creates a new growth point which then creates a more dense and high quality surface. The subsequent debris and "sprigs" are blown off into the rough. Two debris sweepers have been running non stop all week collecting spoils while the trailers haul the debris to the dump. It is a dusty hot mess! With the debris out of the way the topdressers made their way out to sling some san...

  The temperatures again this week have been stout, with highs deep into the 90's and the real feel temps bouncing off 115 degrees. After that rain on the 4th of July the humidity has been pretty oppressive. More rain is on the way and we have yet another stretch of tropical temps early next week. The weather could not be much better for the bermudagrass. Our irrigation system has kept us right on the line of firm and healthy. Our mowing frequencies are up in order to combat the ever growing thatch growth on the bermuda but that leads us into our annual verticut and topdress next week. The Manakin will be closed for three days starting this Monday the 15th. All 55 acres of short grass will be vertically mowed in order to rip some thatch out and replace it with sand. This will help prevent scalping from the mowers the rest of the year and send us in to the fall looking great. Our bentgrass greens are still performing well despite the tropical bermudagrass weather. Sure there are ple...

  Grant Lowery's reign as Manakin Superintendent has officially begun. We ushered Joe out with a banana boat from Mister Softee this week and he is already over at Dominion Club making a positive impact. Mid summer transitions are rarely preferred but in this case everyone has been more than ready to make things happen. We have finally broken the drought pattern and caught a few nice rains. The bermuda is glowing and the greens are enjoying some relief. The lower pH of the rain helps wash through some salts that generally accumulate over periods of drought, a large benefit for all of our turf. With the early season of Monday outings finished we finally were able to get some sand topdressing down on the greens. The sand was followed up with a soil nutrient and fungicide spray and then watered in. This sand, along with a change in soil wetting agents should help alleviate some of the ballmark impacts. We were also able to get another topdressing down on the Sabot approaches. Remember...