Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  On May 29th we were worried as the forecast for June did not have a day above 90 degrees in it. Here we are a month later sitting on a 102 degree high from Wednesday and the bermudagrass is loving life. In less than 6 months we get to manage turf on a 92 degree wide spectrum! All 20 fans made their way out to both courses last week and as of today we have 19 out of 20 running with 3 Sabot just waiting on a new oscillator motor. These 20 fans remain imperative to our bentgrass greens health. On these greens with naturally less air movement the fans drop surface temperatures up to 10 degrees and keep soil temps generally out of the death zone. For this summer we have 4 new moisture meters made by the USGA. The meters connect via bluetooth on your phone and then show you every moisture reading as you work around the green poking it with the meter. Anything under 15% is going to wilt pretty quickly and anything over 30 is probably too wet. The different undulations in the greens will...

  The warm humid weather has finally made an appearance and our bermuda is back in action. Growing degree days are basically a measure of heat units needed to grow grass, the more the better for bermuda. Look how we fell behind last year at the beginning of May but we are projected to catch right back up now. Don't mind the cold start to the year either! The last of the winter damage is being patched up this week. The color in the bermuda is here and we can finally look forward to a great summer. The blue and black tee on 13 Sabot have been sodded out to Zeon zoysiagrass. These tees don't get more than 5 hours of full sun even in the longest days of the year like we are in now. The zoysia can handle the shade and wear much better than bermuda. This week we ran right into our scheduled post Men's Invitational cultural practices on both courses. All 39 greens were topdressed at a medium rate and then solid tine aerated with 3/8" tines. This is the last chance we will hav...

Usually by June we are pretty happy with how the property has shaped up. A few more 49 degree nights this past week has put us behind on the bermuda but the greens really could not be better. The rollers and growth regulator are out and our cool season turf is loving life. The Manakin short grass got a dose of Nitrogen on Monday but these cool nights still has the Latitude behind where it could be. We will continue counteracting the cool weather some more nutrients next week. The native areas are just now going to seed and the guys have the bunker surrounds dialed in nicely for this week. When the sun is shining both sides give some hints at good a season ahead. We made another lap around the property cutting dead pine branches out of damaged trees from the winter. Our final load of sod will come next week and maybe then we can put this past winter behind us. Our seed is starting to pop up on the dredged material on 16 Manakin. This is about the only area that is enjoying the moist coo...