DEATH VALLEY, Calif. -- You know it's going to be a day like no other on the golf course when you approach the second tee, look at the pond fronting the green and think about jumping in.

Never mind the dead coyote lying on the bank of the pond or the green film of who-knows-what that is floating on the surface, that water looks pretty refreshing.

Normally, you do everything you can to avoid water on a golf course, but as you find out over the next four hours, traditional golf conventions and decorum do not apply at Furnace Creek Golf Course.

Here, in one of the hottest places in the world, you play by summer rules.

You don't pull the flagstick when you putt, you don't bother bending over to mark your ball on the green unless it's directly in somebody else's line, and you think long and hard before you pick up a rake to tend to a bunker after hitting a shot out of the sand.

It's all about limiting movement and conserving energy in a sun that sizzles at temperatures well into the triple digits all summer and regularly tops 120 on the hottest days. You don't play Furnace Creek in the summer, you survive it.

"That's pretty much the goal out here," said Matt Muscari, a Las Vegas resident who played the Heatstroke Open tournament at Furnace Creek last month. "Just make it through without passing out."

According to a line in a 1934 National Park Service guidebook, "only the Devil could play golf" on the jagged, sun-baked salt pan on the floor of Death Valley, just a short distance from Furnace Creek. Peter Yoon

A DESERT DWELLING

Furnace Creek sits a quarter mile from the site of the highest temperature ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere in the aptly named Death Valley, a national park that features some of the hottest, driest and lowest spots on Earth.

It's a region filled with arid mountains, huge fields of jagged rocks and giant sand dunes in the Mojave Desert near the California/Nevada border. It's a desert in the truest sense with vast stretches of nothingness and heat visibly rising off the ground. It's the last place in the world you'd expect to find a golf course.

But Furnace Creek Golf Course has been an area attraction since 1927, when date palm farmers laid out three holes, then expanded the course to nine by 1931, to keep themselves entertained. Although surrounded by barren and desolate land, it sits on an oasis so there is water to sustain the course.

Noted course architect William F. Bell (Torrey Pines, Industry Hills) added a second nine in 1968 and Perry Dye, son of hall of fame designer Pete Dye, came in for a renovation and redesign in 1997 and installed a full irrigation system that helped turn Furnace Creek into a resort-quality course.

Now it is a featured attraction for the Furnace Creek Ranch Resort, but only the die-hards play in the summer. Sure, you are surrounded by the trees, ponds and green grass typical of any golf course, but it's still the desert and the heat remains the same.

That means you have to take precautions, such as staying hydrated and spending as little time in the sun as possible, in order to survive. If you don't have a cooler to fill with water, the pro shop will provide one. Out on the course, you don't drive directly to your ball, you dash from tree to tree in order to stay in the shade.

If the group ahead is slow, so be it. That gives you a few more minutes to soak in some shade. If you hit your ball in the trees, it's almost a relief that you don't have to venture into the sun-baked fairway to hit your shot. And if you do hit it in the fairway, you get out of the cart, grab your club, hit and get back in the cart as quickly as possible.

"You don't mess around with practice strokes," said Ben Spillman, a journalist from Las Vegas who recently played the course. "That's how you get heatstroke. Too many practice strokes results in heatstrokes."

Death Valley sits on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and gets about an inch of rain per year. Peter Yoon

EXTREME HEAT

The large, round thermometer conspicuously placed at the entrance to the pro shop serves as an instant reminder of just how real the danger of heatstroke is at Furnace Creek. The thermometer, shaded by the clubhouse awning, maxes out at 130 degrees. Quite often, it needs every bit of that dial.

The highest temperature ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere was at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, when temperatures blazed at 134. It still ranks as the second-highest temperature ever recorded in the world, just behind the 136 in Libya on Sept. 13, 1922.

The average daily temperature in July and August over the past 100 years is right around 115, but temperatures in the mid-120s are quite common during those months.

Golf in such extreme conditions isn't exactly appealing to the casual golfer, so it's no surprise that tee times aren't in high demand during the summer months. On a good day only eight or 10 people will play and most of them are resort employees going out first thing in the morning or in the early evening.

"But every once in a while you get people who come out and just want to go for it," said Steven Prehm, the assistant golf professional. "We try to tell them to play early in the morning, but they want to really experience it and play at two or three in the afternoon. I'm like, 'Are you sure?'"

Setting out for 18 holes at Furnace Creek in the summer takes a certain motivation. Courtesy Peter Yoon

The course staff will warn you that staying hydrated is of the utmost importance. It's so hot and dry that your sweat evaporates before it has a chance to properly cool your body, increasing the chances of heatstroke.

"It's a very dry heat," said Don Forehope, a member of the course's grounds crew. "People laugh when I say that, but it's very different. Out here, you have to pay attention and look for the signs because the heat can get you real fast."

Spillman and his playing partner Ryan Nakashima almost found that out the hard way the first time they played Furnace Creek on July 4, 2007. The high that day was 126 and Nakashima recalls feeling woozy and dazed by the end of the round as he began to question his sanity.

"It was brutal," Nakashima said. "That was a rough one, man. That was hard."

Still, Nakashima and Spillman have come back every summer since. They try to play on or around the Fourth of July and always play afternoon rounds in the thick of the heat "just for the hell of it," Spillman said.

Oh, there's some hell in it, all right, but since that 2007 scare, Spillman and Nakashima have perfected the art of playing at Death Valley.

They play quickly, stay in the shade as much as possible and stock their cooler with plenty of water, sports drinks and fruit. Towels are mandatory equipment, not because they need them to clean their equipment, but because they will soak them in cold water and drape them over their heads. They know that there is a hose near the 11th hole and use it to cool off every time they play.

Even so, it sometimes becomes unbearable. Driving a golf cart through the heat gives a sensation reminiscent of opening the oven door when standing too close, only the sensation doesn't stop until the golf cart does.

Prehm shakes his head at the adventurous mindset of those who want to play in such conditions because he tried it once and vowed he would never do it again.

"I thought I was going to die," he said. "I was throwing up. You start seeing the white cloud and it was like 'Uh oh, time to get home' and I haven't done it again since."

It's rare that golfers fall victim to heatstroke at Furnace Creek. Most play early in the day before the heat gets to be too much and often quit after nine holes if it does. Longtime employees can recall only one or two golfers who needed medical treatment.

Prehm, who is currently in his third summer at the course, said he hasn't had a single player come down with a serious case of heatstroke or heat exhaustion since he's been there.

And, perhaps more important, "I haven't had anyone die on me yet," he said.

Forty-eight brave souls showed up for the inaugural Heatstroke Open at Furnace Creek. Peter Yoon

THE (CRAZY) PEOPLE'S OPEN

In the early spring and late fall, Death Valley weather is perfect for golf, with temperatures in the high 70s and 80s. The course, a certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, attracts dozens of birds and critters and sprouts to a nice, lush green.

This is when the course business booms. Playing Furnace Creek, you get the feeling of a typical resort course, not one that's smack dab in the middle of nothingness, so it's a nice place to play golf. It's no surprise, then, that Furnace Creek is the site of several popular tournaments during those times.

This year, however, Phil Dickinson got a crazy little idea.

Dickinson has been the director of sales and marketing at the Furnace Creek Resort for 13 years. A few folks might have thought the heat had finally gotten to him when he hatched the plan to hold a tournament during the summer.

The inaugural Heatstroke Open took place June 25-26 and 48 players showed up to play.

"I'm not so sure I thought it was a good idea at first, but it was different," Dickinson said. "I just thought it would be neat to do a golf tournament that appealed to those folks out there that are a little over the edge. So we decided to challenge the temperatures here in the summertime."

Those who braved the elements for the Heatstroke earned a certificate and a T-shirt. Most were regulars at Furnace Creek and some had played the fall, winter and spring tournaments for 20 years or more.

But other than the dozen or so resort employees who signed up, none had ever played Death Valley in the summer.