Jordan Hammock and Kevin McDonald are 23-year-olds who enjoy beer and critical thinking, and they don't always keep those pleasures mutually exclusive of one another.

For Hammock, a senior business student at Eastern Michigan University, and McDonald, a paramedic and a senior student at Grand Valley State University, one of their more recent meetings of the minds produced a business venture that neither of them first thought was viable.

"We were all just sitting around and we had a couple beers – nothing crazy," Hammock said.

"But we always bounce ideas back and forth off each other and I said something about a Putt-Putt course because in Ann Arbor, if you're down here in the summer, there's not a whole lot to do at night other than maybe go to the bar or a house party or something."

The idea wasn't just to open a miniature golf course. The idea was to open a miniature golf course in their front yard...the front yard of their rental property...located near the intersection of South State and East Hoover streets...in downtown Ann Arbor...and call it Dusty Clubs Mini Golf – a play on the fact that their front yard is more dirt than it is grass.

Hammock, McDonald and their friends laughed at the idea. But they kept talking about it for the next few minutes and, as the conversation continued, the excitement grew.

Eventually, McDonald brought out a white board and marker so they could map out a vision for what they had been conceptualizing.

"It took several painstaking minutes to draw up the course with the help of a whiteboard and some markers, but we're doers, so when we decide that something's a good idea, we do it," McDonald said.

By the end of the night McDonald and Hammock had outlined the schematics to build a five-hole mini golf course in the front yard of their South State Street rental.

The next day the two rummaged around town in search of building materials so they could give their ideas life.

"We knew Fingerle Lumber had free pallets, so we went around there, grabbed some pallets, stuffed them in the back of Kevin's Toyota Camry, came here and started ripping them up and laying out the course. It looked terrible at first, but we scrounged up some more boards and some better pallets, used somebody's bed that they had thrown in the trash, and we made it much better," Hammock said.

"Overall we probably put a solid $75 into the production of the course. We're looking to get turf over the whole course, but it's kind of expensive. It's kind of cool how we have a contrast between grass and dirt, though."

Kevin McDonald, right, putts as traffic passes by at Dusty Clubs Mini-Golf in Ann Arbor on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. McDonald and his roommate, Jordan Hammock, left, made the mini-golf course in their front yard. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

After more than three weeks of construction, the two had put together a seven-hole (slightly bigger than original plans), par 31 course that starts on their front porch, wraps around the side of their house and takes up their entire front yard.

The signature hole – hole No. 5 – is a par five that's shaped like the iconic Block M. The whole course was a labor of love for the two, as they each put in more than 80 hours of work to build the course.

"Probably five nights a week we'd come out here and work from about 5 or 6 p.m. and work until about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. It was just a fun thing to do. It kept us entertained and it kept us – broke college students – from spending money," said Hammock, who now goes by the moniker Dusty Hammock.

"Everyone thought we were kind of crazy, but as it came together, everyone thought that it was cool. We're right at the corner of a pretty busy intersection, and you can see everyone who passes by stopping and staring at us, asking what we're doing and telling us how cool it is."

There's no charge to play the course. They don't think they could legally charge people even if they wanted to, McDonald said, because they don't have the business registered, and it's zoned as a residential property.

And the hours aren't conventional. Being the busy college students they are, they said when the fall semester starts course hours would be from 5 p.m. until midnights on the weekdays and pretty much all day on the weekends.

They've built a website that offers deals for weddings of up to 50 people, private functions and even stay-and-play packages, where mini golf enthusiasts can crash on their couch, get refreshments and play unlimited rounds.

As light-hearted as Dusty Clubs is, McDonald – who's also known as Kevin Clubs these days – and Hammock said this venture really is giving them a real-life look into what could become careers for them.

"I figured I could try to kind of build a business. I think it's good practice for that. I'm sending out emails and contacting companies on behalf of our business in order to get sponsorships and things like that," Hammock said.

"We have roughly 30,000 or 40,000 people come by here on football Saturdays, so we're using that as a way to sell these companies on sponsorship opportunities."

And companies are buying into their pitches.

Kevin McDonald, left, and roommate Jordan Hammock pose for a photograph at Dusty Clubs Mini-Golf in Ann Arbor on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. McDonald and Hammock made the mini-golf course in their front yard. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

True Floridian Realty – a Delray Beach, Florida-based residential and commercial real estate company – has already signed on as a sponsor of Dusty Clubs, sending Hammock and McDonald hundreds of beer koozies and sunglasses to give away to players of the course.

"I've been in contact with Budweiser, (Grand Rapids-based) Box Water is Better and (Florida-based alcohol delivery service) Klink. Budweiser said they're going to give us stuff to hand out to people when they play and that they really like our website," McDonald said.

"Boxed Water said they're going to give us shirts and different SWAG. We're going to get a Yelp page by the end of the week and Klink said they want to hang a banner and maybe host like a tailgate party before a Michigan football game."

Klink CEO Jeffrey Nadel said he really enjoys what McDonald and Hammock are doing.

Klink launched its alcohol delivery service in Ann Arbor earlier this year and Nadel said he looks forward to potentially partnering with Dusty Clubs and actually coming out to play the course.

"These are a couple guys who've gotten together to make the Ann Arbor community more fun. We're on board with anything that helps make every day worth celebrating," Nadel said.

"We've spoken to them about providing freebies for players on the course and are excited for Klink to be part of what we're sure will become a local hotspot. Klink is all about people coming together, and the Dusty Clubs course offers another opportunity to do just that in Ann Arbor."

The course got its first true test run during the Real Madrid-Manchester United soccer match at the Big House. Throughout the day, more than 30 passersby stopped to play a round.

Golf balls painted with the teams from the Big Ten are available for golfers at Dusty Clubs Mini-Golf in Ann Arbor on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Kevin McDonald and his roommate, Jordan Hammock, made the mini-golf course in their front yard. Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News

McDonald said there were kids with their parents, soccer fanatics played, and several other people just stopped and watched while taking photos and videos.

"We wanted to see how they liked it and what we could do better, so we got some pretty good feedback during that time," Hammock said.

They also got some unlikely feedback from, of all people, an Ann Arbor police officer.

"We actually were coming home from the bar a few nights ago at about 3 a.m. and saw a police officer who stopped at the light. We were hanging out outside talking to a couple French people about the course as they were passing by," McDonald said.

"The officer asked what was going on and we told him we were just about to play some mini-golf and asked him if he wanted to play. He said yes and he parked his car and played a round with us. He was actually one of the better players we've had at the course and gave us good feedback."

Dusty Hammock and Kevin Clubs acknowledged that they don't take the course too seriously, but they do take pride into bringing a drunken idea to its sobering realization.

They've talked about improvements they want to make on the course – eventually adding an eighth and ninth hole – and have invested in some golf bags to hold their putters, and plenty of balls, of which they've hand-drawn the logos of about a half-dozen Big Ten schools. (The investment was minimal. They got most of the those things from The Salvation Army for less than $5.)

"We never really made an end goal. Our roommate asked us the other day when we were going to be finished with this and we said we don't think we're ever going to be finished. As long as we're here we're going to work on it," Hammock said.

"We think it will really pick up once classes start. As long as people come and enjoy it, that's all I really care about. Seeing people drive and walk by and tell us they want to play – it really makes us feel good about it. People think it's pretty awesome."

McDonald added: "Even with us, this has gone from 'This is something hilarious' to 'Wait, this is sort of getting to be legit.' Now, as we've come this far, we've built relationships with people who pass by all the time, and we really do take pride in it."

The two have even extended a Twitter invitation U.S. Rep. John Dingell, to which he replied: "Ha! Thanks for the offer. When I get my bad back straightened out, I'll take you up on that."