Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

Monday started a little slower than normal as the concrete plant was having trouble with some of their equipment. The first truck showed up two hours late and ended up having too wet of a mix. After sending them back to the plant they got it right and the first yard of 58 for the week was poured into 17 greenside bunker.   All 5 bunkers on 17 Manakin now have fresh drainage, liners and new sand in them. After a busy Monday and Tuesday pouring concrete the white sand came out from the shop and about 250 tons were laid out between the bunkers.  The sand has been tracked in, tamped down and smoothed out for play. This will most likely be the last bunkers we do in 2025 as we will need to get moving on the Manakin irrigation project after Thanksgiving. The area left to complete the bunkers on 11, 13, 14 and 16 is slightly more than what we just finished on 17 and 18. The remaining work will get tackled in February and March. The Sabot team got after another drainage project on...

  35 degrees brought some decent frost on Wednesday morning. This was the first day we had really seen any frost form on the fairways, although it was light. The bermuda may finally start turning its winter color, despite the inch of rain Sunday and more rain today. With the winter solstice only 30 days away it is time to start limiting cart traffic where we can. Next week we will put out small posts in the fairways that will mark where to retreat back to the path. The geofence will be just behind the posts and will slow your cart if entered. Please try to spread your wear with the carts as the bermuda has already started its 6 month slumber. Beating up the same area over and over (like at the end of the post in the picture) only results in thin and/or dead turf in the spring. On to the fun stuff. On 12 Sabot the drain basin where we wanted to connect our new french drain to turned out to be clogged. After some digging on Friday last week, we found the pipe went right under a junky...

  We are grazing high temperature records and now going on close to 40 days without any real rain. We are running water where its needed but the bermuda is getting closer and closer to turning off color and going dormant for the winter. Here on 9 Manakin it is easy to see where we cut the roots of this pine tree when we were running irrigation wire last winter.  The dry weather reduces complications when it comes to project work. With the new fiscal year upon us the Manakin crew jumped right into renovating their remaining bunkers. All the sand and old drainage pipe and gravel is removed and the original edge of the bunker is re-established. Most of these bunkers have lost 18-24" off their bottom edge over the past 20 years. The old drain lines are dug slightly deeper and the bottom of the bunkers are shaved down at least 2 inches to make room for the permeable concrete liner. You can tell it was the first week of winter projects since the guys got about twice as much done as ...