Black Diamond Ranch: Quarry Course
Black Diamond is a good thirteen hole golf course plus five of the most interesting holes in golf. I believe Black Diamond was the original quarry course and when compared to the only other one I’ve played (The Quarry in San Antonio) it better uses the quarry and walls in the actual strategy of how the hole is played.
I’d be lying if I told you I remember any other holes from the course and mind you I played this less than a year before writing this. Plus I had this on the original PGA Championship Golf 2000 computer game. So yes, without the quarry holes the course is a nice semi-private residential course where the homes don’t impact play or views of the countryside. Is it top 100? No. Top 200? Probably not either but close because it is a nice course with a good variety of holes. Add the quarry holes and this zips up to my top 100 and has been on all of the magazine lists in the past as well.
Played here right before the Vid hit in 2020 – ah we were so innocent then. The entire experience was really nice; we were early season but conditioning was great even though the rough was still dormant. Nice restaurant/bar and clubhouse. Great, friendly staff. And again, five of the most interesting holes in golf. Not sure if this is private or not. I got on through BoxGroove which you can use to book some private or resort courses without a stay. Though I read that it is semi-private and you can simply call up. I don’t know, try it.
We played the second furthest back tees, but even those only measure 6,395 yards. To the course then. Blah, blah, blah let’s skip the first twelve holes. The 13th is the easiest hole on the course?!? A 184-yarder to a sloping green over a yawning canyon. Short = death. How this is the 18th handicap is beyond me. Sign me up for a nice double please. Fortunately from there I played the quarry holes to even par. The 14th is a par-five cape hole where you need to bite off as much of the canyon as possible. A birdie here. The 15th is my favorite hole on the course you shoot down into the quarry with water left and a quarry wall to the right. Make sure you hit it straight. Sixteen takes you back up to the quarry rim again, this time left = death. Amazingly I parred both of those and bogeyed the 17th which played over 200 yards and over a waste area with a rock backstop (photo above). I felt pretty good coming out of the quarry just one ball lighter and heading into a pretty ordinary and harmless par-five 18th. A par would give me an 87 which is a good score for me. Yup I finished with a nice 89. Golf sucks.
Tampa is actually a great city for a golf trip. If your hockey team is in town when you go down, you can catch a game at the Amelia Center downtown. There’s a nice Marriott down there and they just finished up an adjoining J.W. Marriott so you can find some good places to stay. For eats, one of the top steakhouses in the country is here – Bern’s. It’s old school and you best make reservations a few weeks in advance. It’s only a short Uber ride if you’re downtown. Four Green Fields is a great Irish bar downtown – there are a few of them but the one on Curtis Hixon Park is super authentic for Dublin let alone Tampa. Malio’s Prime Steakhouse is around the corner from there in the Rivergate Tower. Great steakhouse and wine list.
Courses to play? Well we came here in the early 2000’s for a bachelor party and played TPC Tampa which was nice, not great but nice. Black Diamond is a 1-1/2 hour ride and is up by World Woods with the Pine Barrens course if you want to do back-to-back Best in Florida ranked courses. There’s Innisbrook Copperhead but you’ll pay a lot, in greens fees, balls and pride. Leave Streamsong for a separate trip. The rest I’ve played here are private but if you have the connections, Old Memorial and the Concession are supposed to be the top private offerings, hoping to play Old Memorial at some point this year as our buddy Scott is a seasonal member.
Golf Scrapbook 