Citrus: Black Diamond Quarry ranked among best

Black Diamond Quarry ranked among best

The Lecanto course is recognized by Golf Digest.

By KRISTEN LEIGH PORTER

LECANTO -- Black Diamond Ranch Quarry has been recognized again among America's 100 greatest golf courses. It is ranked 95th in the May edition of Golf Digest, down from the 2001-2002 rating of No. 83.

Ron Whitten, who oversees the rankings as the magazine's architecture editor, calls them the "Academy Awards of golf architecture."

He has golfed the Quarry course, and said it takes advantage of the terrain around Lecanto.

"There's a big pit mine, and that climaxes the round five out of the last six holes played down in and around the rim every which way you can think of -- over it, everything," Whitten said.

"The front nine is well done also. It's hilly and with lots of trees. It's just overall a very fine test of golf," he said. "The reason it makes our 100 Greatest is it simply fits into that sort of model of architecture that the various categories of our survey identify."

Golf Digest ranks the courses from 1-100 using scores by a nationwide panel of 844 low-handicap male and female golfers. The categories are as follows: Shot Values, Resistance to Scoring, Design Variety, Memorability, Aesthetics, Conditioning, Ambiance and Walkability.

The scores of the first six categories are averaged, the Shot Values doubled, then the averages totaled. Tradition points and Walking points are added to determine each course's total.

The Quarry has been ranked 12 years as one of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses: 1991-1992, No. 24; 1993-1994, No. 51; 1995-1996, No. 55; 1997-1998, No. 59; 1999-2000, No. 58; and 2001-2002, No. 83. Maurice Lepine, general manager of Black Diamond, got the new rankings in the mail this weekend.

"We're pleased we were in the top 100, not pleased we dropped," Lepine said. "We're making an absolute superhuman effort.

"We will get higher rankings, I assure you, because of what we're doing and the integrity of what we're trying to bring to every hole on the course."

Whitten does not vote on the rankings, but called the project an "immense undertaking." He said if a course's rating has dropped, it most likely could be attributed to conditioning. Golf Digest keeps the evaluation scores for 10 years on all panelists who file on each course, but it purges the conditioning numbers every two years.

"That doesn't mean it's in bad shape," Whitten said. "It could have gone from an average of excellent to an average of very good and it would drop."

John Cunningham, Black Diamond's course superintendent, said there are changes in store.

"We're going to change out our tee surfaces, go to a different strain of Bermuda grass called Tiff Sport, and we're also upgrading our equipment fleet," Cunningham said.

"We're in the process of doing that right now, which is going to help obviously to better manicure the golf courses," he said.

Cunningham has been at Black Diamond 11 months, coming from Martin Downs Country Club in Palm City, a multi-course facility.

"That's why I'm here. I'm here to take Black Diamond to the next level," Cunningham said.

In early March, Black Diamond Ranch announced that veteran PGA Rules official Larry Startzel was named director of golf. Startzel, who oversees golf-related business that includes staffing, retail operations, tournament operations and play, has been a PGA member 30-plus years.

Whitten said the magazine for years ran the 100 Greatest alphabetically before deciding to do it numerically. That format seems to have generated a lot of intense debate, which Whitten said he is sorry to see happen.

"It doesn't matter if you're No. 1 or No. 100," Whitten said. "If you are one of the 100 elite courses out of 16,000 in America, that's a special honor."

Evan Belcher, head pro at Black Diamond, said the Quarry course was deserving of the honor.

"I think it's a uniqueness for Florida," Belcher said. "When you look at South Florida, Central Florida, it's very typical of flat, farm land. And especially where we are, we're a little southwest of Ocala.

"When you get back to the Quarry golf course, the view -- starting on the 13th tee -- is just phenomenal. You get a feel you're almost in a California-type atmosphere where we have a lot of oak trees and not palm trees," he said. "You play some of our course, and you feel like you're in Georgia pines, the Carolina mountains. You just don't feel like you're in Florida."