Black Diamond Ranch Golf & Country Club: Ranch Course

The Ranch Course is the second Tom Fazio 18 at Black Diamond Ranch in Lecanto, Florida, opened in 1997 on gently rolling sandy terrain framed by live oak hammocks. Named for the property's citrus-era ranch history, the par-72 layout plays with a Carolina Sandhills feel and closes with holes 16, 17 and 18 that Fazio himself has called the best finishing stretch he ever designed.

Black Diamond Ranch sits in Citrus County in Central Florida, near the town of Lecanto and roughly 80 miles north of Tampa. The property was first settled in the early 1930s by an Ohio landowner named John Newell and was later purchased in the 1940s by John Taylor Jr., a citrus packer from Largo, Florida, who named it Black Diamond Ranch after a premium grapefruit of the same name. The ranch operated as a citrus and cattle property for several decades before passing out of the Taylor family.

In 1984 the land was acquired by Stan Olsen, who selected Tom Fazio to design two 18-hole courses on the unusual Central Florida terrain — rolling, sandy, and cut through by an abandoned limestone quarry that would become the defining feature of the first course. Black Diamond's Quarry Course opened in 1987 and made the club nationally famous almost immediately, putting Fazio and Black Diamond in virtually every conversation about top modern Florida golf. The Ranch Course followed in 1997 as Fazio's second 18 on the property.Fairways at the Ranch are framed by hammocks of live oak and set on gently rolling, sandy soil, producing a visual feel closer to the North Carolina Sandhills than to typical Florida golf.

Fazio has spoken publicly about the property's strong finish: he has described the 16th, 17th and 18th holes as representing, in his view, the best three finishing holes he has ever designed. Inside the club, the Ranch operates as the member's course at Black Diamond, used for daily play alongside the more scenically famous Quarry. It is also the Fazio layout most often recommended to members hosting guests who are newer to the game, since its wider corridors and calmer terrain make for a more playable round than the Quarry's forced carries across the rock walls.

Together the two courses anchor among the most recognized Fazio-designed private clubs in the Southeast.