(FORTUNE Small Business) – Distance has not been a problem for me. I'm not John Daly long--not even David Toms long--but I'm usually the longest hitter in my foursome, and I've hit a fair number of par-5s in 2. Still, on the 1st tee of Windswept Dunes Golf Club, I don't feel so Herculean.

From the Championship tees, Windswept Dunes stretches 7,607 yards, making it the longest par-72 in Florida and one of the longest in the U.S. Normally I'd be pumped about taking on that kind of beast, but on this damp morning I am full of excuses: I arrived late last night because my flight was delayed; the driver from the rental set has too much loft; my last round of golf was more than six months ago.

So I make a wise--or is it cowardly?--decision in course management and move up to the Tournament tees, shortening the 1st hole from 470 to 436 yards and reasoning that a total distance of 7,271 yards is still longer than that of most courses. (The Tournament tees are the fifth-longest of six sets at Windswept Dunes; the shortest set is 5,199 yards.) My manhood is still intact, somewhat.

"Good choice," says Doug O'Rourke, 48. He should know: O'Rourke is the designer and owner of Windswept Dunes, a project that placed him in uncharted territory professionally, geographically, and financially since it opened last year.

Located in Freeport, Fla., about halfway between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City in the state's panhandle and ten miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, Windswept Dunes is the first course O'Rourke designed. Before this, his company, Dozer Construction, built more than 20 courses designed by others, including some of the top golf architects in the country. Among the courses O'Rourke crafted are several at Treetops, the premier golf resort in northern Michigan, and the Raymond Hearn-designed Grande Golf Club in Jackson, Mich., named one of Golf Digest's Best New Courses of 2002.

O'Rourke's home base is Gaylord, Mich., where the varied topography provides a great canvas for golf. At Windswept Dunes, 1,200 miles away, he didn't have those natural advantages. Before construction, the site had been as flat and uninteresting as a parking lot. And then there's the state of the golf industry. According to the National Golf Foundation, 156 18-hole courses opened in 2004, down from 398 in 2000, because of a surplus of courses and sluggish growth in the number of golfers. Yet O'Rourke forged ahead, seeing opportunity in a growing area underserved by the offerings of quality golf normally found in vacation spots. At the Windswept Dunes location, only one other course is within a half-hour drive.

To finance the course, he tapped much of his personal and company assets, borrowed from friends and family, and built Windswept Dunes for a bargain price of $5.5 million in an unheard-of nine months. Most courses take at least a year and a half to complete, but O'Rourke and his staff of about 20 temporarily relocated to Florida and worked seven days a week. "If a bigger corporation did it, they would have spent more than $10 million and they still wouldn't be open by now," O'Rourke says. "We didn't have that luxury. We had to get open. I put a lot of stuff on the line."

As it turns out, the dunes that give the course its name look windswept but are completely man-made. O'Rourke spent much of the money to dig more than 700,000 cubic yards of sand from different areas of the property and erect dunes that would mirror the natural formations near the gulf, frame certain holes, and give the course its links-style character.

Windswept Dunes had a soft opening in September 2004, but Hurricane Ivan hit soon afterward, so the course logged only 2,000 rounds by year-end. To make money, O'Rourke needs closer to20,000 rounds a year with a greens fee of $78, including cart. He shuttles between Michigan and Florida, but the course is run day-to-day by his general manager (and wife), Diann. His daughter, Leslie, does the accounting and helps run the food and beverage operation.

O'Rourke wanted to build a course that wouldn't be turned into a drive, pitch, and putt in ten years by advances in equipment, and he has already succeeded: The opening holes are brutal. After the 470-yard 1st, the 2nd is a 244-yard par-3 over water, where I top my tee shot into the hazard and make double bogey. Walking to the 3rd tee, I wonder whether the fun will ever begin. At this rate, I expect to find the assistant pro on the 18th green, handing out stickers that read I SURVIVED WINDSWEPT DUNES. If I don't run out of balls first.

But the course does ease up and turns out to be a fun yet exacting test. My opinion starts to shift on the 3rd hole, a 585-yard par-5 that exemplifies O'Rourke's philosophy of giving average players wide landing areas and multiple options instead of dictating a certain way of playing the hole. At the same time, good players will find there's an optimal line of play that yields the best results.

The main feature of the 3rd, a dogleg to the right wide enough to land a C-5 cargo plane from nearby Eglin Air Force Base, is a bunker in the middle of the fairway. From my tee the drive must fly 253 yards to carry the sand. O'Rourke encourages me to challenge the bunker, explaining that a drive over it will land on a downward slope and bounce an extra 20 yards, giving me a chance to hit the green in 2.

It is early in the round, I have yet to hit a solid shot, and the air is damp and heavy, but what the heck. My mother raised me to be polite, and it would be rude to ignore the host's suggestion. I hit the drive exactly as O'Rourke advised, and the ball hangs in the air a long time before barely carrying the sand. But somehow, instead of bouncing forward into the fairway or back into the sand, it sticks on the grassy bank, leaving me an awkward stance for my second shot, with my right foot in the bunker. I lay up and make an uneventful par, but I wonder whether an extra yard of carry would have led to a birdie.

The rest of the holes follow this theme. Despite the yardage, O'Rourke made the course relatively forgiving. For most players, the wide fairways (80 yards across in spots) and huge putting surfaces (more than 10,000 square feet; the average green at most courses is 6,000 square feet) offer plenty of margin for error.

Also, because shots roll a lot on the firm, sandy turf, the course plays shorter than the yardage. If you catch a drive solidly going downwind, there's a good chance you'll hit one of your longest drives of the year. Many of the trees, shaped by the prevailing wind and leaning several degrees, provide a clue about how blustery it can get.

Other hacker-friendly features include a lack of forced carries over hazards (except for the 2nd hole), greenside bunkers placed about 20 yards from the edges of the greens to allow approach shots to land short and bounce onto the green, and chipping areas that promote bump-and-runs or even putts instead of tricky, hard-to-hit pitches.

"There are no spots where you're absolutely dead," O'Rourke says. "I didn't set out to build a tournament stop. In this market, you have to accommodate everybody." In short, it's hard for a player to shoot a very high score, even on a bad day.

Yet the course's sheer length makes it equally difficult for a good player to score low. Making birdies requires precise execution, especially on approaches into the greens, which have plenty of tiers and slopes that reduce the effective size of the target. I learn that lesson on the 9th, a 452-yard par-4, where a solid six-iron approach shot lands just short of the hole, then rolls past before catching a down slope and winding up 30 feet away.

Still, by the time I reach the 15th tee the sun is out, the rust is off my swing, and I am loading up on every shot as if I were at the driving range. In fact, I have been to ranges that are narrower than some of these fairways. I hit my best drive of the day, and the ball kicks forward exactly as O'Rourke envisioned, leaving me an eight-iron into the green.

On the 18th, I push my drive and fail to make the carry to the fairway. But just as on the 3rd hole, the result is not too bad. Most other architects would have used water to guard the fairway on a hole like this, and I'd be lucky to make a double bogey. But O'Rourke mercifully used grass mounds, and I'm able to end the round with a par, walking off as a satisfied customer.

Which is exactly what O'Rourke had in mind when designing Windswept Dunes. He wants golfers to return, as I plan to do. Only when I come back, it'll be with a new driver, so that I can tackle the back tees.