BLACK BUTTE RANCH — Don’t take a bet with a golfer who calls Black Butte Ranch’s Glaze Meadow course his home track.

A round at Glaze Meadow could get awfully expensive that way.

Insider knowledge is at a premium on the nearly 30-year-old golf course.

At 6,574 yards from the back tees, Glaze Meadow is not especially long. But golfers who struggle to control their distances can pay dearly on the heavily wooded course with more twists and turns than a NASCAR road course.

Glaze Meadows features 11 holes with doglegs and hilly terrain that creates a slew of blind shots that will make the uninitiated a bit nervous.

“I think it does take some home-course knowledge,” says Jeff Fought, Black Butte Ranch’s director of golf. “It’s definitely a position course where you’ve got to hit it in different places and not always use your driver.”

Glaze Meadow is a much different course than Black Butte Ranch’s more forgiving Big Meadow golf course.

For one, Glaze has a unique layout with a back nine made up of three par 3s, three par 4s and three par 5s.

Tight fairways challenge a golfer to hit the ball straight, and the doglegs can abuse overly aggressive golfers.

Those challenges can take a driver out of the hands of longer hitters on many of the holes at Glaze Meadow.

“It doesn’t have a lot of length to it, but it has some strategy to it,” Fought says. “You’ve got to know the right places to hit it. For most people, they can still bust driver there. But for people that hit it over a certain yardage, you’ve got to watch yourself.”

Glaze Meadow typically is not as busy as Big Meadow, hosting about 4,000 rounds fewer each year than the older Big Meadow, which hosted about 23,000 rounds in 2007.

But Glaze Meadow is due for a face-lift, like the one Black Butte Ranch performed on Big Meadow last year.

The resort is planning to open up Glaze Meadow and straighten some of the more severe doglegs, such as the 514-yard, par-5 15th hole, which has a dogleg right of almost 90 degrees.

The hole can be tricky, because even if a golfer hits a good drive that cuts the corner on the right, trees block the approach shot and limit the ability to go for the green in two shots.

It’s not a bad golf hole. But with golfers hitting the ball farther than ever before thanks to changing technology with clubs and balls, opening up the hole would allow golfers to be more aggressive.

“We have a lot of doglegs that turn at around the 200-yard mark,” says Fought, adding that there is no specific timeline for the renovations at Glaze Meadow. “We are going to straighten out some of those holes and position the tees a little bit different so they are not such (dramatic) doglegs.”

The third, fourth and fifth holes are the gems of the golf course.

The 334-yard, par-4 third hole is a dramatic dogleg left. From the tee, golfers are forced to hit a mid- or low-iron shot to prevent running into a lake that stretches along the right side to the green.

The fourth hole, a 379-yard par 4, forces a golfer to carry two large bunkers and water off the tee for a workable approach shot into a green surrounded by ponderosa pines.

And the fifth, a short 155-yard par 3, must be carried over a creek into an expansive green that is backed by a bunker and by the same lake that comes into play on the third and fourth holes.

Even as breathtaking as the holes are — with the grass and trees contrasting beautifully with wild flowers and a large lake — Fought sees room for improvement.

“There will still be a lot of trouble to the right…guaranteed,” Fought says. “We’re going to do some fun stuff. That lake area on 3, 4, and really 5, is gorgeous.”

Glaze Meadow is not as challenging with a little course knowledge.

Blind shots, like those into the green on the 532-yard, par-5 10th hole, become easier if a golfer knows what lies ahead.

And double doglegs, like that on the 514-yard, par-5 first hole, become less scary.

Which may be why the golf course is so popular among the homeowners who play the course regularly and know just how to play Glaze Meadow.

“Our homeowners that play golf here (at Glaze Meadow) and have played golf here for 25 years, a lot of them, that’s their favorite course versus Big Meadow,” Fought says. “They know where everything is. Because there is some blind stuff on Glaze Meadow.”