Favorite Things

Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 19 Feb 2010, early morning. Facing roughly north, looking across part of the 7th fairway of the Dogwood Course.

A ~35-year-old drain pipe under the fairway had been deteriorating for 2-3 years. Sinkholes developed in the surface over the pipe. Eventually several sinkholes merged to form sort of a trench (the linear feature slighly above the center of the photo). There is a difficult-to-see sinkhole, in line with the others, immediately north of the cart path. The terrian here is complex. The hole plays left to right in this photo (downhill toward the lake), and when you are on this part of this fairway, it slopes down toward the players right. I'm facing upslope taking this photo, and there is a steeper slope to my left.

One smaller hole in the fairway, in the background (a bit east of the main line of the trench), is a test pit dug as part of this work. They dug the test hole to locate an irrigation pipe, trying to prevent it from being inadvertently cut by this work.

The earth moving machines from the previous photo are in the upper center of this photo. A fairway sand trap is at lower right. The thing just above the sand trap -- between the sand trap and the cart parth -- is a brick-lined collection pit (with concrete cover). The pipe that is being replaced (and several other drains) empty into this box. Another buried pipe carries water from the lower portion of the collection pit down to the lake. There are slots at the top of the brick walls of the collection pit to take in surface runoff. The surface runoff has caused some surface soil erosion in the area surrounding the collection pit structure.


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