A tour of The Chalkmine, Aiken/Graniteville SC

[Scott Warren]

Last Saturday, while hanging around Aiken South Carolina for The Masters, I was lucky enough to get to go out and do a few laps of The Chalkmine, a new short course that Jim McNair of Aiken GC fame has built between Aiken and Graniteville for use by the USC Aiken golf teams and The First Tee of Aiken.

I hit no more than a nine-iron (and only then owing to the 5th playing into the strong, cold wind that was making scoring over in Augusta pretty difficult) and for the most part it was partial shots with my wedges to greens that depending on the pin and wind you'll vary between wanting to fly the ball all the way, low-spin bullets that release out and controlled one-hoppers to use the slopes... the perfect array of shots to become deadly.

I'll let the holes speak for themselves in the pics, but I'd say my favourite holes were 1, 3 and 7, and I loved the "Devil's Bellybutton" on 4 and the exposed rocks right of the narrow 8th green. 1, 5 and 9 were great holes for trying to control your ballflight hitting a lofted club downhill in the wind, which I find to maybe be the hardest "easy" shot in golf.

With the course otherwise empty, I was getting around each loop in about 30 minutes and having a lot of fun in the process, despite it being about 12°C and blowing a stiff, icy breeze. On a sunny afternoon with some mates and maybe a few beers, I'm not sure I'd ever leave.

[Jim O’Kane]

Wow. Thanks for sharing! That looks like a ton of fun!

I live in Atlanta and have always wanted to get over to play the Aiken Golf Club. Now there is extra reason to do so.

Do you have to have an affiliation with the USC Aiken Golf Team or Aiken First Tee in order to play?

[Jeff Schley]

Scott excellent effort in detailing this course with photos. Much appreciated.

[Scott Warren]

Do you have to have an affiliation with the USC Aiken Golf Team or Aiken First Tee in order to play?

My understanding is that play will be limited to those groups as well as donors to The First Tee.


The course is still growing in and the supporting infrastructure in the very early stages of construction. I imagine there will be some more info made available as that all reaches completion.

[jeffwarne]

Great pics and tour Scott.
That was a cold day for sure.
Course looks like a blast to play.


Those First Tee kids had better be really good.....
Looks similar to our 5 hole par 3 course and it(all that beautiful native) can be tough on unskilled players...

[Thomas Dai]

Only wish there were more places like this around.
Atb

[Michael Felton]

George Bryan (bryanbrosgolf on youtube) has a handful of videos of himself playing the Chalkmine. Looks like tremendous fun. He also has a few at Aiken. Well worth a watch if you can't get out there yourself.

[Jim O’Kane]

Do you have to have an affiliation with the USC Aiken Golf Team or Aiken First Tee in order to play?

My understanding is that play will be limited to those groups as well as donors to The First Tee.


The course is still growing in and the supporting infrastructure in the very early stages of construction. I imagine there will be some more info made available as that all reaches completion.

Thanks for the info Scott. I'll keep an eye on it. Sure looks like great fun!