Mount Rainier stands guard over The Home Course in DuPont, Washington

DUPONT, Wash. -- The Home Course is a unique golf course with a unique history.

There is evidence that the site was home to a rudimentary six-hole golf course built in the 1800s around Fort Nisqually, a main trading post and supply center for early U.S. settlers and local Native Americans.

In 1906, today's DuPont Company built a plant to manufacture explosives on the land. During the transformation into a golf course in 2007, architect Mike Asmundson kept some of the old cement blasting walls by grassing them over and used them as mounds. The dynamite-shaped tee markers are a tribute to this history.

Most golfers will have a blast (pun intended) playing the 7,424-yard course. Its firm and fast conditions are not the norm in the soggy Pacific Northwest. More than a dozen authentic sod-wall bunkers built by superintendent Kelly Donaldson add to the links look and feel. The spectacular view of Mount Rainier, the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound will remind you that this isn't Scotland, though.

The only two water hazards on the golf course -- on the short par-4 seventh and the par-3 14th -- define the best two holes. The Home Course, which hosted the 2010 U.S. Amateur in conjunction with Chambers Bay, will eventually house the offices of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association, the Washington State Golf Association and other golf associations.