We are in our normal holding pattern for spring now. The fairways have greened up nicely but there will be no exciting amount bermuda growth for a bit, even with 90 in the forecast next week. The soil temperatures rise slowly, just as the water temperature does. Above 80 degrees makes it close to comfortable to jump in the pool and that is when the bermuda will start moving. We are hovering in the mid 60's right now. In the meantime enjoy the bouncy golf course and lack of rough! We were able to knock out our final bunker renovation of the season on Manakin this week. Joe and Sloan sc ..read more

  With all 3 aeration machines in action on Monday the guys ran through all 19 greens on Manakin before 3:00. The upper profiles of these Manakin greens continue to become healthier. The plugs contain much more sand than in the past, with plenty of new root growth already taking place.  The quarter inch sized plugs are relatively easy to blow off the surface, eliminating any abrasion during the clean up process. Our zeolite clay along with some calcium, potassium, magnesium and humic acid were all applied to the open holes before close to 40 tons of sand was spread over the green ..read more

  We were almost dried out this past Monday but a quick shower on Tuesday and a deluge of water on Wednesday soaked us down with another 1.3" of rain for the week. The only good thing about the rain is that it is keeping frosts away but that may also change this weekend. The fairways may be green enough to power through some low thirties but we will have to wait and see. The Sabot guys continue to pick off small drainage projects like here along #1 cartpath. More drainage was added to the walkpath to the right of 3 approach where the spring seems to of expanded some. This french drain s ..read more

We have seen a solid 4 inches of rain come down since this past Saturday night and that puts us well past the airport total of 7" for the month. We'll go ahead and place ourselves in the 8th place spot for wettest March on the books. The rain continues to wash the chaff off the bermuda and despite a few speckles of frost here and there it continues to green up slowly. Monday was a beautiful day however so Joe went ahead and knocked out some additional drainage on 15 Manakin blue and white tee.  Grant, Dillon and Bobby continue to dial in the Manakin irrigation system. All of the part ..read more

  The guys got started early on Monday with all three of our greens aerators. 1/4" cores were pulled out of the top two inches of our greens profile on all 20 greens before the end of the day. The absence of the dryject combined with smaller holes at a tighter spacing seems to put these greens through less of a shock in the spring. The performance of the surface through the season has improved with this aeration practice and recovery is much quicker than using the dryject and larger holes. We are still able to get about 30 tons of kiln dried sand into the holes on the greens. This ..read more

  It is easy to overlook work done in the past but after a soaking week of rain last week we had carts off the path on all 36 holes on Tuesday this week. The only way this happens is with diligent drainage and tree work, two tasks that will never end! The Sabot team has starting "relocating" trees in the form of wood chips in the beds around the course.  We dried up enough Tuesday to put the final roll out on the Manakin irrigation project. There will be some tweaking here and there as we start running and checking heads but this project is 99% finished. Joe and the guys go after ..read more

  The last 7 days of weather has been miserable! Over 2.5 inches of rain has kept us saturated all week but the forecast ahead (besides Saturday) looks very promising. There is plenty of bermudagrass greening up out there thanks to the moisture, lets hope the frost takes it easy on these 2024 leaves next week. The wiring on holes 5 through 13 on the Manakin is now complete. Save for a few pipes that didn't duck far enough when the plow went over them and some rolling to be done we are in great shape. We plugged the new wire into our computer and popped on a few heads on for fun. O ..read more

  We have now clicked over 14 inches of rain since December 1st and have not had many stretches over 5 days with out a rain drop. Our patience is wearing thin on the pickleball project so we decided to cover the fill area with tarps early in the week. Today (Thursday) we worked all day hauling softer soil up to the dump. This extra 6-8 inches will give us more depth for gravel and enable us to firm this area up enough for asphalt. Geo fabric will be laid down tomorrow and then stone will be compacted back into this cut out area. This should defend against having rain slow us up any more ..read more

  There was no shortage of freezing temperatures this week. The sun keeps creeping higher and higher but 25 degrees made sure the bermuda could stay dormant. Manakin irrigation moved on to 13 this week. A week without rain meant we could dig up every head on 13 almost in one day. The wire pulling and connection process continues to move along well. The only heads left on this side of the gas line are on 6 fairway now. This coming Monday we will knock out 5 and 13 greens and then work on 6 fairway. If all goes well we may be finished in two weeks time. There are only 100 heads left to di ..read more

  Even after another 1.5" of rain fell this past Sunday, and a miserable day of drizzle Monday, the guys have made it up to the gas line on 5 this week. That is about 100 more holes dug and filled back in leaving less than 150 heads left to dig and wire up over the next few weeks. The natural gas line actually consists of 3 huge pipes carrying gas from West Virginia to who knows where. No electrical lines can run over the gas pipes but we will use an existing conduit pipe to run the new wire through and then connect all the heads on the other side of the line. The wire has weaved throug ..read more