Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  After 3 inches of rain last Friday, some humid weather moved in and kept the clouds at ground level early in the week. We got a break today and both courses are finally drying back out. Despite the fog, our entire week was dry which allowed us to accomplish all of our projects on Sabot as planned. The team started on 5 green surround. All 20,000 square feet of turf was stripped up and moved out of the way. There was a pretty ugly mix of cool season turf, warm season weeds throughout this area. Previously we had planned to re-sod this surround in the spring but thanks to Covid we had to hold off. With things back in line we were also able to reshape the entire area. Last year we had sodded out 5 approach to Tahoma bermudagrass. That sod did not go to waste and has now replaced the bentgrass that used to exist on 6 green tee and 8 black tee on Sabot. An operator from the golf course construction company Landscapes Unlimited camped out in our mini excavator all week. His first task ...

  There is not a whole lot left in the growth tank for the bermudagrass. Both the latitude and vamont are holding color well but we'll see what a few nights in the 30's does this weekend. We have been busy prepping the bermuda for winter by easing off mowing, raising heights, applying fungicides for spring dead spot and putting some potassium to help hold up to the cold. Besides the rain keeping things a little soft, conditions are still very fun out there. Despite some hefty rain over the weekend we started moving on some bunker projects this week on 2 Sabot. As we mentioned last week, this small pot bunker back right of the green was invisible from the fairway and rarely in play. We excavated the sand and soil and reshaped the area a bit. The bunker is now erased. In the spring we will mow this area at approach height and tie it in with the other side of the approach to increase the roll off area here on 2. We also pulled the sand and drainage out of the fairway bunker on 2. ...

  The weather over the last few days has been absolutely beautiful. Low humidity, no clouds and full sun means excellent growing weather and great playing conditions. We do have some rain in the forecast however. With the weather continuing to slow the bermuda growth to a halt, and a wet week ahead, we went ahead and pulled the trigger on overseeding the Sabot fairways with bluegrass again. Some of the bluegrass from last year is coming back but certainly not close to 100%. We simply dropped more seed in at 2/3rds the rate of last year to bolster what is already there. Time didn't really allow for a full verticut and scalping process to prepare a seed bed but we didn't want to injure what bluegrass was coming back anyway. The vamont still presents a nice seedbed for this tiny bluegrass seed so as the rains come, we hope to see the bluegrass take back over this fall and winter. The cartpath sealing work is finally over! About 9,000 gallons of sealant mix was applied to the paths...

  A concrete truck full of capillary concrete came in on Monday to finish off the fairway bunkers on 18 Sabot. Last year we tested a few larger, flatter bunkers with just doing the edge with the drainage material and it worked just fine. The smaller more sloped bunkers are filled completely with the permeable concrete. The bunkers were immediately tested Tuesday night with heavy rain and held up perfectly. New white sand filled up the last 3 bunkers on the back nine. 18 Sabot looks beautiful with all freshly renovated bunkers! One of our initiatives for the fall is to amplify our view of the lake from the clubhouse, 10, 18, 17 and even 16 Sabot. This will be done by periodically removing trees as we move through the cooler months. Hunter attacked the willow tree on the little island right of 18 fairway on Wednesday. Much better! The weather continues to be cool and the bermuda is not moving very much at all. This means we have to restrict practicing on the grass at the driving rang...

  The bottom has dropped out of the night time temperatures. We even hit 39 degrees the other day! The cold temperatures have slammed the bermuda to a halt and allowed our bentgrass to take a nice breath of fresh air. Today is the one year anniversary of the Manakin opening with Latitude 36 bermudagrass! We were very lucky with the weather last year. An extended hot and dry period led us to perfect conditions come September 24th. Looking at the weather last year, it was 100 degrees on October 3rd! Now on September 24th the bermuda has slowed down significantly. The Manakin will receive no paint this year, we will be going all natural, all winter. The paint certainly did not help us green up any faster this spring and bottom line, it is expensive! We are going to continue encouraging our bluegrass experiment on the Sabot. The bluegrass gives great natural color and helps suck up moisture on the lower area that the Sabot plays through. While the bluegrass isn't showing its face as mu...

  Shorter days and cooler night time temperatures are here. The bermuda is going to slow down and we are hoping the bluegrass on the Sabot keeps popping its head back up. Hurricane Sally is helping with that right now. We will wait about another month before any more bluegrass seed hits the ground. We are lucky to get some cooler temperatures this early. Last year it was still hot as the Manakin was finishing growing in, next week will mark its one year anniversary. All of our 6 new fans are down and back at the shop for the season. They unplug and unbolt from their pedestal and then a top fits nicely on to the control box so that a mower can have an easier time mowing around the area. The fans were life savers this season, moving cooler air across the bentgrass when it was hot and wet. We have four more fans in the budget next year for 2 Manakin, 6, 7, and 14 Sabot. Installed cost of each fan is about $10,000. We continue to dial in the irrigation renovation bid process for the Sa...

  What a miserable year for cool season turf. The Sabot greens continue to heal from aeration (and the summer in general) and the Manakin greens are just waiting on some lower humidity to start shining. We put some gypsum as well as some humic acid on the greens this week in order to help with microbial activity and make all possible nutrients available for our bentgrass. Our bluegrass seed for the year is on site. That is 20 bags or $5,000 worth of seed. We still have some hope that our bluegrass from last year is going to fill back in, but this seed will speed up the process. In the past we were spending over $20k a year in ryegrass overseeding. Seeding date is TBD but it will be sometime in October/early November. If the bluegrass really does fill back in quickly by Christmas, maybe they will put Joe's face on the bag for next year. We also got another load of stone pavers in this week. This will keep us busy in the colder months, finishing up some curbing and getting the area o...