Hermitage CC Golf Course Management

  The beast has awoken! The bermuda is back and has quickly started to show off. The heat, humidity and moisture are finally optimal to put these courses in great playing condition.  In the same breath that we talk about how good the bermuda is we will also see the bentgrass green speeds slow down a touch. Having the the humidity reach into the 80's and 90's is much different than what we observed all spring. Cool temperatures and low humidity help produce a very thin leaf blade that gave us amazing greens speeds all spring. With humidity up to summer levels the plant will retain that moisture since the outside air is already saturated with moisture. We apply a variety of different nutrients that help increase transpiration but the main goal remains to keep these greens healthy through the summer. One major help in increasing moisture transfer is the use of our fans. All 20 of our fans are out on the golf courses. The 5 oldest fans that were on the Sabot have been retired and ...

  It took some sort of tropical depression to bring us over an inch of rain this week and there is more coming. We had not gotten more than an inch since April 27th! Both courses are taking the rain nicely and will be ready for some heat and humidity this weekend. The bermuda in the rough really got its first good cut just this week! In front of the rain this week we wanted to finish off the new drop area on 4 Sabot. The gold tee has always been subject to an excessive beating from everyone hitting it in the water so this new area will give some relief to that most forward tee. We hauled in a few loads of soil from the dump and started blending it into the hill. By about 9:30 am on Monday Ben, Jose and David had the shape about ready for sod. Two dump truck trips to two different sod farms yielded some zoysia for the drop area surface and bermudagrass for the surround. The sod farms continue to struggle against the dry weather and cool temperatures but this tee should be ready for ...

  Our small tine aeration on all 39 greens was completed in two days this week. The tiny cores help us give the roots one last avenue to shoot down vertically while also continuing to allow water and air move through our upper profile. Our newer small tine program has been working nicely. The small tines don't rattle or heave the surface of the greens as much as larger tines so the bentgrass hasn't needed much energy to recover from the process. That and the weather has been perfect for bentgrass this year!  The small cores are easily blown off and picked up, allowing us to do an entire course in just one day. With the cores removed the greens got a very light dusting of sand. Some calcium went down on the greens and we applied an organic fertilizer to the collars to help them perk up a bit. The greens enjoyed their respective day off and are mowing out and putting nicely now after a couple of rounds of irrigation. A few of the tees that like to stay wet over the winter were a...

  The golf courses have come together nicely over the last few weeks all thanks to these 45 people. Day in and day out they perform all kinds of different tasks to keep our 500 acres playable and fun for the entire membership. We are ready for summer! Reminders for next week: Sabot will be closed on Tuesday and Manakin will be closed on Wednesday for greens aeration. We will be pulling tiny 1/8 cores out of the greens and dusting them with sand as our final preparation for summer. There will be very little impact to ball roll with this procedure. Our next round of pre-emergent weed control for goosegrass along with grub control is scheduled for next week and we may or may not get started putting the fans up. Hopefully the wildfires calm down a bit and can get more sun on this bermudagrass!

  Ok here is our last complaint post about the cold and the slow bermuda this season. Take a look at the May growing degree days compared to the last two years. Growing degree days measure the difference in the mean temperature for the day and 50 degrees. Obviously the base temperature for bermuda growth has to be significantly higher than 50 but you get the idea that we are way behind. June is here and it is bermudagrass growing time. Those are actual grass clippings coming out of the fairway mower today! The bermuda on both courses fairways has made some strides thanks to some peeks of sun over the weekend and the rain on Tuesday. The greens have started growing a little more as well. The thick summer dew pattern is back as the humidity and temperatures start to creep up.  Mario and Fortino dug in our last greens fan base on 9 Sabot in the rain on Tuesday. This is the only new addition for this year. All of the old fans from Sabot 3, 4, 5, 12 and 15 will be replaced with bra...

  In case you thought it had been cold this month, you are correct. We will close out the third coldest May over the last 14 years in a few days. The weekend weather looks miserable enough that we may even see our current average temp drop into the 63's like 2016 and 2020. We are supposed to pick up 9 degrees from April to May and we only got 3! Good for the greens, NOT good for the bermuda!  We stripped up another 18,000 square feet of bermuda that didn't make it into 2023 early in the week.  Half of that bermuda has been replaced with turf type tall fescue. All in shaded moist areas like here behind 3 Manakin as well as behind 5 Manakin and near 5 Sabot approach. It was wonderful to have the Manakin closed two days in a row in order to solid tine aerate all the short grass. Three tractor aerators poked 3" deep holes over about 50 acres of fairways and tees. These holes will help rooting through the summer and water infiltration. The walk behind aerators got any tight ar...

  The temperatures remain cooler than normal so our bentgrass has been loving life. Roots are growing, the texture has stayed fine and green speeds have been optimal. We will be pulling tiny cores out of the back nine Sabot greens on Monday to continue help them smooth out and speed up. Right now they are about 1 foot behind the front nine in speed but that is mainly because the front nine is just too darn good to slow down.  The bermuda is trying its best to green up but it still isn't moving anywhere very quickly without a bigger jump in temperatures. 11 tees are shaded both in the morning and in the afternoon so they remain thin this cool spring. Next week we will lay down one more truck of bermudagrass in some thin areas around both courses and then one truck of tall fescue in notoriously shaded spots like behind 3 Manakin and 5 Manakin greens. An additional post emergent application for Poa control has been made over the past two weeks in all the rough. This winter was mi...