Black Butte Ranch - Glaze Meadow Course

The Glaze Meadow Course at Black Butte Ranch opened in 1979 as the second 18-hole layout at this Central Oregon resort. Originally designed by Gene Hamm, the course was substantially renovated in 2012 by architect John Fought, who installed five sets of tees on every hole and converted the playing surfaces to bluegrass-rye fairways with Bentgrass greens.

Glaze Meadow is an 18-hole course at Black Butte Ranch in Sisters, Oregon, originally designed by Gene "Bunny" Mason in 1982 and comprehensively renovated by John Fought in 2012 at a cost of $3.75 million. The original Mason design featured narrow fairways lined by ponderosa pine that defined a classic mountain resort layout in the forest west of Sisters. Fought's renovation, completed thirty years after the original opening, transformed the course's infrastructure while preserving the fundamental character of the ponderosa-pine setting: new greens and tee complexes, widened fairways accomplished through the removal of approximately 3,500 trees, restoration of the wetlands on the early holes, addition of directional bunkers, and installation of a new irrigation system.

The rerouting and reconstruction of all tee boxes also added more than 400 yards to the course's overall length, bringing Glaze Meadow to its current 7,007 yards from the back tees. John Fought is a Portland-area architect whose Oregon practice has been responsible for some of the Pacific Northwest's most acclaimed public course designs, including Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club's Ghost Creek course and Langdon Farms. His renovation at Glaze Meadow brought his established design sensibility — a preference for firm, fast conditions, classic bunkering geometry, and ground-game playing environments — to a course where the ponderosa pine setting and mountain terrain provided strong material to work with.

Fought installed five sets of tees on every hole, making the renovated Glaze Meadow accessible to golfers of all skill levels while presenting a demanding test from the championship markers. After completing the Glaze Meadow renovation in 2012, Fought returned to design the 12-hole Little Meadow Putting Course, a family-friendly addition to Black Butte Ranch's golf program that serves beginners, children, and casual players seeking a format distinct from the ranch's two championship courses. The three-facility golf offering — Glaze Meadow, Big Meadow, and Little Meadow — creates a comprehensive resort golf program appropriate to the diverse range of guests that Black Butte Ranch attracts from across the Pacific Northwest.

Black Butte Ranch's position within the ponderosa pine forest at the eastern base of the Cascades gives Glaze Meadow a setting of genuine ecological distinction. The old-growth ponderosa pine that lines the fairways represents a forest community unique to the transition zone between the Cascade mountain climate and the Central Oregon high desert, a landscape that is increasingly restricted in its extent due to development and land management changes across the region. Black Butte Ranch is located eight miles west of Sisters, Oregon, placing it in the foothills of the Cascades where the forest ecosystem transitions toward the drier terrain of Central Oregon.