Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  Landscapes Unlimited is on 12 Sabot now with the main line, cruising up the right side. The cold mornings haven't been pleasant but the sunny afternoons have made backfilling go smoothly. The 3 inch main line that started on 10 has meet with the big 8" main now behind 11 green. To the left the 8" goes to 17 and to the right that 8" is going towards 12. The crew will be backfilling tomorrow and then be thankful for some rain on Friday so they can take a little break. Most will travel back home for Christmas to see their families.  Ben had the excavator up by the green on 12 early this week. Here is a before picture (always a rare site on the blog). Ben cleaned out the old bentgrass and tied the edges in better to the surrounding slopes. The right side has already been sodded with the left over zoysia from the greens slope project and the left will get some tall fescue. The plan will be to put 2-3 rock features here to create some pools. The well behind the green has...

  The last 10 pallets of Pure Eclipse covered up 15 Sabot on Tuesday before almost 1.5 inches of rain came down. This was another awesome team effort, sodding out all 9 greens, 60,000 square feet in 5 total days. We had two pallets left over so the nursery green by tennis was also re-sodded.  10 green is more or less rooted in already. We rolled 10 and 11 on Wednesday and they smoothed out nicely. The rest of the greens will have to go through some 20 degree temperatures this weekend before we get the rollers and mowers on them. Landscapes Unlimited has broken ground on 10 Sabot and we have new HDPE pipe going in the ground. Just like last year, the mainline pipe will go in the ground first, all the way around the back nine. The contractors will then come back and plow in the lateral lines and dig in all the irrigation heads. The pipe is currently being fused right in the bottom parking lot. The pipe ends are heated up and squeezed together creating a bead that is much stronge...

  Last weekends 80 degree temperatures have the fairways on both courses looking phenomenal. Looking at pictures from last year the color this year is a little better but some cool nights will have things looking differently towards the end of the month. The dry weather has kept playing conditions excellent for the fall. As the sod farm worked Monday on cutting our first load of grass to be delivered on Tuesday, we finished dialing in 12 green as well as prepped the fairway bunker on 10 for capillary concrete. Two golf course shapers from Landscapes Unlimited helped us with the finishing touches for 12, getting the grades to Andrew Green's recommendations, making a few adjustments and then doing a final rake for sod. We stole some sod from 16 approach (which will be modified this spring) and laid down the new collar. This left collar has been brought back to the original green cavity line which was almost 2 feet inside where the green used to be. It is much flatter now and raised u...

  The weather has been perfect this week so we have been off and running with a variety of projects all around the property. Monday the drill and fill contractors were on site and we ran through the Sabot back nine greens. These machines drill down into the greens profile 12 inches and then dry sand fills up that column. Check out a video here . The dryject then followed behind the drill and fill machines to put even more sand through the upper layer of the back nine greens. Both of these procedures will help us ensure great water and air infiltration as we call these greens "new" next season. With the contractors out of the way on Tuesday afternoon, our team worked quickly to strip the top half inch of sod off the greens. All 60,000 square feet of turf was stripped and gone by Wednesday afternoon. The crew from Glenmore did come and help us roll up #10 green. We put the rolls on pallets and they took it back to rebuild their nursery green. Otherwise, our 30 year old L93 bent...

  The fall leaf drop is in full swing, especially with the breeze that picked up today, Thursday. We have finished our Poa annua pre-emergent applications for the winter season. Poa is a winter annual so that means it is trying to germinate now, survive the winter, thrive in the spring and then die in the summer. Overall both courses have been pretty clean so far and these pre-emergent applications should keep it that way. The vamont on the Sabot has remained green and is playing beautifully. With no overseed process this year you've been handed wonderful conditions on the Sabot for the month of October as opposed to major disturbance from trying to sow a winter crop.  We were able to sneak in one more core aeration on the new greens on the front of Sabot this week. These new tines are even smaller than the 1/4" cores we used for normal aeration back in August.  The cores dried out quickly and were easily blown off the green and picked up. We ran up to Sunbelt and picked ...

  Some temperatures in the low 30's have brought some frost into the rough this week. That 52 degree soil temperature is still at about 8am so that keeps the greens, tees and fairways warm enough to not have frost form yet. The cold air wraps around the taller canopy of the rough so those poor leaf blades are frosted easily. The temperatures should come back up for the end of the month and we'll even have some more tropical moisture this weekend. The courses are greener now (thanks to the rain) than they have been in two months! All of our pipe, sprinklers and the last of the fittings arrived on Wednesday which you can see in the lower parking lot. All of our supplies were ordered this past August so that they would be here in time. The irrigation company is now looking at a mid-November start as the rains have slowed down two other projects where our crew is currently working. Our greens resurfacing is still set to begin October 31st however, as all that sod work will be done ...