Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  Nothing to see here besides a 60 degree gap that we are trying to grow bermuda grass in! Another 38 degree night last night doesn't help things but the bermuda is pushing through. The cold, dry weather this winter and early spring has the bermuda behind but it will prevail soon enough. The Sabot back nine fairways are thankfully getting their summer transition started. It is easy to see how the poa is getting burned out of 10 fairway after the higher temps last weekend. The vamont underneath is waking up. We'll be mowing these fairways lower to help continue stressing the cool season and encourage the bermuda to take the reins back. We made a final push to patch up some sodding projects around both courses this week. Besides replacing some small areas around the new sprinkler heads on the front nine we have continued to evaluate, clean up and reduce the size of some of our pine straw beds. This bed on 10 Sabot where the bald cypress used to be was raised up so water can flow ...

  We are up to just our second cut on the tall fescue at home. The cool season grass is starting to grow but the bermuda has a few more weeks before blast off. The dry and cool weather is not helping bring on summer any faster but that is ok. In labor news this cut only cost $.25 so I would check with your landscape company and make sure you are not getting ripped off. We had a few cold nights in a row this week, topped off by Tuesday night dropping to 31 degrees. A light frost formed on the bermuda Wednesday morning. Close to every irrigation head on the property ran for 2-3 minutes to splash some 50 degree water on the 30 degree leaf blades. All 18 holes are now open on the Sabot. Olvin cut the first cup on #1 early Tuesday morning. It is wild how a green looks totally different with a cup and a flagstick in it.  The new bentgrass looks phenomenal and the putting quality right from the start is very good. The finer texture of the Pure Eclipse is allowing for around twice the...

The Sabot front nine will have been closed for 170 days come April 19th. Of those 170 days we have seen about two days of bermudagrass growing weather, today and yesterday. Our irrigation and greens project is coming together nicely thanks to the amazing efforts of not only our staff but the staff of Landscapes Unlimited. Working through the cold and wet winter weather they never stopped on their way to installing ten miles of new pipe and over 700 new sprinkler heads. We are ready for golf, we aren't ready for TV, but we can play golf. The new greens are down to a pretty normal height which is .125". We'll be mowing and rolling through the weekend and thanks to the aerations on the other 27 holes, these new greens are already the best surfaces we have to putt on at the moment. Remember, there are no ballmarks on these greens, lets try to keep it that way. We have posted plenty of pictures of all the disturbance from this project. We have pieced everything back together th...

 Reminder: The Manakin greens will be aerated on this coming Monday. We will be Dryjecting and then simply pulling out tiny 1/4" cores. This is much less painful than the standard spring aeration and we will explain that philosophy next week! We cut our first two cups in the Pure Eclipse this week and got the chipping green open. The bentgrass has been slowly recovering from aeration while the bermuda keeps going backwards. Over the next 11 days we'll keep inching the mowing height down to try and match up with the back nine greens. The Pure Eclipse looks great and while it won't be at Augusta tournament speed on the 19th, it will be strong and healthy and ready for a great season. The frost on Saturday did a number on our bermuda that was greening up. As the final sprinkler heads went in last weekend, the plywood from the workers protected a few spots in 1 fairway. The frost set up and smoked the leaves that weren't protected from the plywood. This backwards movement ...

  With the irrigation project isolated on #1, we now can finish off a few projects of our own behind the new pipe installation. A big french drain was cut in here off 3 cartpath to help direct water away from this front right green side bunker. The bridge by 4 green was rebuilt with fresh treated lumber. The old dirt path has also been prepped for new asphalt all the way to the bridge on #5. This path and transition should be nice and smooth come the opening of the front nine of the 19th of April. We have also been working on replacing the old cobblestones with new pavers around the front of the Sabot. The new greens continue to grow through the cold and we have dropped the height down another .01" this week. They are recovered from their aeration and looking great. The irrigation team is at the top of the hill on 1, headed towards the tee. The rain storms have not been helping but the guys continue to grind towards the finish line. The cartpath from #1 Sabot tee to our cut throug...

  We came up with a perfect week of weather for aerating greens this week. Two dry sunny days were followed up with another shot of rain on Wednesday. The Sabot back nine greens were where we started on Monday. The deep tine aerators started the process by driving half inch solid tines about 8 inches into the surface. The dryject machines followed and quickly injected about 20 tons of sand into all 9 greens.  The dryject puts the sand right where we want it, diluting the top organic layer of our greens. We are once again going as aggressive as possible here on the back nine in front of the greens resurfacing to be completed this coming winter. After the dryject we pulled half inch cores out and blew off the resulting organic matter. More sand was put down on top of the open holes. Starting out with the dryject is basically a head start for aeration. Working sand into the holes with traditional aeration is much more difficult. The greens were brushed and rolled and then the aer...