AMIDON - There's just one guy in America who can say he has the only house on the north side of Highway 85 between Watford City and Mexico.

Red-haired Ernie Holzemer of Amidon lives in a white two-story where the transcontinental highway takes a big curve west.

Holzemer says everybody else lives on the east or west side of the long, black north-south highway. He's an anomaly, a one-and-only in a couple thousand miles with his north-side-of-the-highway address.

Or so he says.

No one's ever disputed his story, so he's sticking to it. Besides, that claim to fame is nothing next to Holzemer's newest.

Holzemer's got a regular - forget regular, there's nothing regular about it - four-hole golf course a couple of hundred yards from his front door.

The greens' flags stuck to galvanized pipe strained so hard in Tuesday's wind it hurt to watch them. What could have really hurt were tumbleweeds hurtling by at Mach speed. Catch one of those in the face and it'd be like trying to peel an octopus off a rock.

"Guess those are my weeds," Holzemer said.

Never mind the tumbleweeds. They'd soon be Montana's problem anyway.

This golf course out in the middle of nowhere, now that requires some explanation.

Holzemer said it started innocently enough. Some of the guys, probably aided by a couple of inspirational brewskis, started talking about developing a golf course at Amidon.

They could wait until they got $4 million together, like up at Medora, or each could put a hole in on their farms and ranches. After all, it couldn't be too much work to take care of one hole, and a guy could always drive his pickup from one hole to the next.

Like a lot of really good ideas, this one was pretty much dead before they called it a night.

So, last summer, Holzemer took matters into his own pasture.

This is the same guy, after all, who entered the local talent show with a toilet stool in the back of an old-model truck. He billed it as the original "porta-potty," and sat on the stool so no one would miss the point.

But back to the golf course.

Holzemer started with one hole. He looked at it and thought, "This is pretty stupid. I might as well put in another one to play back."

Before he was done, he'd put in four - two par-4s and two par-3s - and groomed the "fairway" with a sickle rake and mower.

The holes are laid out on one fairway like pockets on a pool table, and Holzemer said it isn't a bad idea to call your hole from the tee box, marked with two beer cans on low stakes.

Holzemer's not done yet. He's planning to add a few more holes and could eventually have a full nine-hole course, just begging passersby on the busy highway to stop and play a round.

Permission isn't required. "You don't have to knock," he said.

There are no green fees because he figures that if he charges people, the first thing they'll do is complain.

But this is no fly-by-night setup.

There are rules, even if they're not posted:

No golf carts are allowed because it would knock the playing time from 20 minutes to five.

If a badger steals your ball, don't mess with the badger.

If a gopher steals your ball, it's legal to retrieve it from the gopher hole.

Use your 7-iron to kill rattlesnakes.

Sandals are for sissies and people who enjoy the feel of cactus needles in their toenails.

That's it for rules.

Holzemer uses his driver and 6-iron to play a round. It's too rough to putt, so close counts good enough.

"It's a therapy thing. I like to knock the ball as far as I can," he said.

For the two days there's water in the no-name creek running alongside the course, Holzemer's got himself a genuine water hazard, too.

Now that he's done all the work, the guys want to know if he's going to have the traditional men's night and women's night at the course.

"Am I going to have women's night? You bet, but I'm playing it," he said.

He's a bachelor and the company would be nice.

Holzemer tries to get in a round every day, playing with green balls in the brown grass when the weather allowed this past winter.

People cruising down Highway 85 may not realize that Holzemer's house practically qualifies for one of those special highway markers, but they do register the sight of a guy swinging a golf club out in the pasture.

"A lot of people honk when they go by," Holzemer said.

He tries not to let the friendly beeps break his concentration.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 1-888-303-5511, or scoop@ndonline.com.)