All that's required at Round Mountain, perhaps America's most remote course, is a hearty sense of adventure.

U.S. Highway 50, arguably the loneliest road in America, cuts like a black knife across the vast open landscape that is rural Nevada. This asphalt ribbon lets one time-travel through Nevada's past, when the search for gold and silver created bleak outposts on barren lands.

Driving through the sagebrush-filled valleys and rugged mountain passes, the only signs of activity are the occasional unfenced cattle grazing along the highway and dirt roads that peel off into the distance to Lord knows where. One can envision horse-drawn wagons carrying settlers to hidden claims. Every dilapidated stone foundation is a reminder of the search for fortune in the haunting beauty of this wide expanse.

Three hours east of Reno is Austin, Nev., a town of a few hundred residents who carry on in the skeleton of one of the boom- towns of the 1860s, where thousands scrambled through the hills looking for fortune. Twelve miles down the road is the junction with Route 376, headed south, and the first hint of a paradox. There it is, the sign post up ahead: 50 miles to Round Mountain, the loneliest golf course in America.

This is an extra-terrestrial highway and the last place you want your car to break down. AAA is not going to get roadside assistance there in 30 minutes. For the better part of 200 miles there have been few signs of water, let alone a glimpse of green grass. The sage grips the ground as the unforgiving wind rips at any form of life. Each valley stretches for miles with only the black road marring its contours.

It is hard to imagine that miners combed these desolate pockets more than a century ago, searching for a bag of gold dust and the one claim that would make them rich. It is even harder to imagine that someone would want to cross this vastness just to play a round of golf.

The last stretch crosses more nothingness. For if NASA's space explorations are a massive hoax, then the Mars Pathfinder is surely here in the Smoky Valley. Suddenly the noticeably regular layers of dirt can be seen from 10 miles away. Here, in what is virtually the geographic center of the state, 250 miles from civilization and closer to its past, is the Nevada of the '90s, the booming, modern Round Mountain Gold Mine. Here, carved from the baked clay soil, is the Round Mountain Golf Course, the pride of the mining town.

The gold mine is a joint venture between Echo Bay Mines, Homestake Mining Company and Case Pomeroy and Company, Inc., the Smoky Valley Common Operation. While gold has been taken from this area since the turn of the century, its revival has come from the technological developments that make the recovery of microscopic specks profitable.

Some 600 people work at this outpost, which is 60 miles from the nearest bank and 180 miles from the closest traffic light. They have been tempted to settle in Round Mountain by excellent wages, good benefits, schools, a medical clinic and a rotating schedule that lets them leave for a week at a time every month. The golf course was created as an attraction that would make life in this remote valley tolerable.

Round Mountain Golf Course is a nine-hole track cut along the company town and built by Echo Bay Minerals. The course was laid out by William Neff, a prominent course architect from Salt Lake City, and more than $1 million was put into the construction of the layout, which includes lakes, careful mounding and a modern irrigation system.

What the mining company could not provide, though, was golfers themselves. Miners are a hard-working, defiant and resourceful lot who are strong on tradition but suspicious of new endeavors. The first few years of operation the course had little play from the workers. But the lack of much to do in this company town slowly drew the curious to the game.

The hard winds and a harsher winter drove the course into disrepair a few years back. Not wanting to see its investment lost, Round Mountain Gold searched for someone to reclaim the course, just as the mining company had reclaimed the gold from the nearby mountain.

Pete Summerbell is a native Nevadan and PGA Class A professional who came to Round Mountain three years ago. He brought to the course not only a strong background for daily golf operations, but also an acquired knowledge in course maintenance developed during his stints of handling both facets at the nine-hole military course at the Hawthorne Army Depot 170 miles away.

"When I came here the greens were dead," Summerbell said, "so I had to start a complete overseeding program to bring them back. That first summer I verticut the greens seven times and seeded them three times to get grass to come back."

His diligence has paid off as he has brought the course from a dormant state. The large greens are firm and true and the tees and fairways are lush. It all gives little hint that the region sees only four inches of rain per year.

Growing grass is one thing, but nurturing golfers is another. Summerbell began by developing weekly clinics that would introduce new players. The massive driving range next to the clubhouse provides a perfect spot to hold classes, which have become increasingly popular. Summerbell has also developed a junior program that has drawn 50 kids, more than 10 percent of the entire school population.

Summerbell not only works with the kids on the range, but he also laid out four practice holes around the perimeter of the range so they're able to practice before they play the big course. "This past spring," he boasted, "we had a golf team represent the high school in scholastic matches for the first time."

Round Mountain now has more than 200 regular players registered with the men's and women's clubs. Summerbell expects Round Mountain to have at least 15,000 rounds played during 1997, which includes a small number of tourists who make their way out into the wild west.

Miner Mario Esparza, a nine-year resident of Round Mountain, is typical of the locals.

"I started playing golf five years ago," Esparza said. "Some friends of mine decided to go out and give it a try as none of us had ever touched a club before. I was hooked the first time I played. Besides, there is really not much else to do out here. Now I play 60 to 70 times a year and my handicap is down to an 18.

"There are over 600 people working out here and the golf course is a great way to meet the best people around."

"We are four hours from Reno, four hours from Las Vegas, and seven hours from Salt Lake City, but if you come here you will find all of the golf course you'll want," Summerbell says. The nine holes may be played as short as 2,511 yards or as long as 3,569; playing the tips twice makes Round Mountain one of the longest courses in Nevada. The length is accentuated by the whistling southerly wind. Because of the constant wind, there are no sand bunkers at Round Mountain; keeping sand from returning to the desert would be impossible.

The remoteness is evident from every tee. The first four holes are bordered by the company town of Hadley, but off in the distance the rugged terrain and predominant sagebrush stretch beyond the horizon. Round Mountain provides practically no chance of forgetting where you are. Out-of-towners generally pair up with someone involved with the mine, itself an overwhelming backdrop. Try as you might to focus on golf, you will no doubt be stunned and fascinated by the towering monument to modern mining that continues to rise across the valley.

A vast array of heavy equipment, including 28 yard shovels, 23 yard excavators and 190-ton dump trucks with tires as tall as a house, move more than 74,000 tons of ore daily. Round Mountain is a heap leach mine where ore is spread out over a controlled pad and soaked for six months with a weak solution of water and cyanide, which bleeds the minute amounts of gold out of the ore. While only .013 ounces of gold are recovered from a ton of earth, the mine annually produces some 317,000 ounces of gold (almost 10 tons).

The mine and golf are ironic partners. Modern mining has its critics as the use of cyanide and the disturbance of unfathomable amounts of land bring concern. But the mine produces a precious commodity for the marketplace as well as jobs and revenue to the rural community. The management's primary interest is getting the gold, but its concern for the environment and how the site will look a decade from now is an integral part of its overall operation.

Round Mountain Gold adheres to strict policies to control the potential hazards. The cyanide use is strictly monitored and controlled. When the mine is exhausted, the huge mounds of ore must be graded and re-vegetated to simulate the area before the mining began. The mine is licensed to move more than 240 million tons of ore, which should keep it in operation for another 12 to 15 years.

Like any small community, the course has become a social hub. A large sign just short of the lake at the ninth hole declares "No ÔHanking' till 2nd shot," a reference to Hank Lesinski, whose constant heckling talked his opponent into hitting a drive into the lake on the final round of the club championship. It is the type of action that brings to mind the legends of the old west, where hardly a day would go by without settlers testing the mettle of others.

The hearty sense of adventure necessary in this part of the country is legendary -- even to the locals. John Whalen, the executive director of the Nevada Golf Association and a member of the USGA's Junior Amateur Committee, finds the course to be a neat layout. He makes the one-hour plane trip to visit a few times a year.

"I have always enjoyed the golf course," he says. "We would take a state championship tournament to Round Mountain -- if we could only get there."