January 4, 2000
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
LECANTO, Fla. (AP) - By the time the sun reached the top of the sky over Black Diamond Ranch, Laurie Frutchey had already put in a full day of work.
She mowed the fairways to her liking, with the kind of crisscross stripes often seen at televised tournaments. She made sure the irrigation system was running smoothly, that mole crickets had not invaded a course rated No. 58 in the country by Golf Digest and third in the golf-rich state of Florida.
Sitting at her desk as a crew of 46 primped the lush Tom Fazio design carved through a limestone quarry, Frutchey pulled a letter out of her files from a woman who sold medical supplies.
The woman was inspired by a story she had read about Frutchey, who belongs to one of the smallest minorities in golf - less than 1 percent of the nearly 10,000 head superintendents in the United States are women.
"Every time an article comes out, I get a letter," said Frutchey, soft-spoken but tough as nails when it comes to tending to Black Diamond.
The job of superintendent, one of the most critical in golf, is another area where women are slowly beginning to make inroads in what has long been a male-dominated game.
"I don't think there's anything in the job that a man or a woman can't accomplish," Frutchey said. "Golf was traditionally a man's sport, so I guess it seems obvious that taking care of a man's sport would be man's job.
"But I never thought about it," she said. "I knew what I wanted to do and I had an opportunity to do it. The woman issue wasn't mine, it was those around me."
Frutchey, 36, had no aspirations of becoming a pioneer when her roommate at Florida State helped land her a job mowing greens at Killearn Country Club in Tallahassee. Her plan had been to teach high school science.
That didn't last long.
Fresh air and the smell of grass clippings hooked her. The fascination grew as she watched Golden Eagles in Tallahassee, another Fazio design, evolve from dirt into a first-class golf course.
And when she finished college, her education really began.
One of Fazio's most highly anticipated projects at the time was Black Diamond Ranch, 1,240 acres of meadows and lakes and abandoned quarries in Florida's Nature Coast that had been purchased by Stan Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp.
Frutchey got a job on the general maintenance staff.
"I started with a wheel barrow and sod, whatever it took to get the course going," she said. "We didn't have irrigation yet, so we toted around a water tanker. There was no book knowledge at all. You learn as you go, train yourself. But I did work under some really good people."
The Quarry course at Black Diamond opened in 1987, and Frutchey slowly worked her way up the ranks - from irrigation, to chemical application, to foreman and then assistant superintendent.
To say she got her hands dirty would be an understatement. Frutchey's most memorable task in this "dream" job was standing in mud up to her knees, digging holes for aquatic plants in such a way that the soil and chemicals wouldn't spill into the aquifer.
"We did that for a good eight weeks," she said.
Another time, a 4-foot culvert pipe became packed with dirt. For two days, Frutchey crawled into the pipe with a wheel barrow and a shovel to clean it out.
What did her parents make of this career choice?
The first time they came down from Pennsylvania to see how their daughter had put her college education to use, Frutchey showed up in a back-hoe filled to the brim with muck.
"They were a little shocked," she said.
When superintendent Karl Jacob died suddenly in 1994, Black Diamond launched a national search and Frutchey took over as acting superintendent. As one candidate after another was interviewed, Olsen realized the course had never looked so impressive.
His new superintendent was right under his nose.
"It was never a matter of male or female," Olsen said. "It was a matter of advancing somebody to the job. The job takes a drive for perfection. We never really reach it, but we get pretty close. That's what she does. That's the vision I have, and she fits right in.
"She has a passion to learn, and no real ego to get in the way."
The members of Black Diamond, located about 90 miles north of Tampa, include 1958 U.S. Open champion Tommy Bolt. Tiger Woods filmed one of his early Nike commercial at the Quarry course, a spectacular setting with 100-foot changes in elevation and dramatic limestone cliffs.
Frutchey is responsible for keeping it that way, something she never imagined when she first arrived at Florida State.
"I never even knew this job existed," said Frutchey, who now plays once a week and shoots in the 90s. "People don't know what's involved in keeping up a golf course. It's a lot more than just mowing greens and changing pins."
Frutchey believes more and more women will become superintendents before long, although she never looks at herself as a minority. The exception is at superintendents conferences.
"I have never felt uncomfortable," she said. "There can be 50 or 60 guys and me, and it's hard to get to know all their names. But everybody knows mine because I'm usually the only woman in the room."
