When the roots are the problem
A ground stump is fine under grass. It is not fine under a carport pad, a paved drive, or the drain field a lake house depends on. Pine is the local complication: a loblolly sinks a taproot straight down into the red clay and holds on, so pulling one is closer to excavation than to yard work. The payoff is a clean hole with nothing left to rot, settle, or sucker — the only honest starting point for anything you intend to build on that spot.
How crews around the Lakelands do it
Expect a mini excavator, a morning of trenching, and a serious pile of clay and root wood by lunch. Clay cuts clean but weighs heavy; hauling the ball off is its own line on the quote, and worth asking about, because a wet root ball out of a big pine will overload a half-ton pickup without trying. The other questions that matter: what fills the hole, whether the fill gets tamped in layers so your slab does not sink later, and how close the digging can safely run to a water line or the septic tank on properties out toward Ninety Six and Troy where everything is on well and tank.
Where grinding still wins
If nothing is being built, say so — the answer changes. Regrassing a spot needs only a grind a few inches down, at a fraction of the price, and any outfit worth hiring will steer you there when it fits. What separates the good ones is that they ask what the spot is for before they quote either version.
Call before anyone digs
Root extraction is real digging, and real digging in South Carolina starts with the 811 locate — free, and required before the bucket goes in. On older lots around Greenwood and Ware Shoals the water service seldom runs where anyone remembers it running. A crew that schedules the locate without being asked is the crew to keep.