Of course, when you start with the 1986 Masters, the bar is set a bit on the high side.

That remains one of the great major championships ever — and sporting events in general — but what burned the tournament in Reilly’s memory goes beyond the fact that Jack Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine the final day to win his 18th and final major at age 46.

“That was my first one ever. I was so scared,” Reilly said in a phone interview last week, before he made his usual early-spring trek to Augusta National for this week’s Masters. “I’d only gotten on the magazine (Sports Illustrated) the year before. They gave me the golf beat because Dan Jenkins left to go to Golf Digest.

“I had to ask Jack Nicklaus on Wednesday if he was broke. I had never met Jack Nicklaus. My dad and I used to sit and watch him; he was our hero. And the first thing I’ve got to say to Jack Nicklaus is, ‘Mr. Nicklaus, we hear you’re broke.’ I just wanted to crawl, but we had this great tip that he was broke. He said, ‘come with me,’ and he takes me up to the Champions Locker Room (at Augusta National).

“I can barely hear him talk because my knees are knocking together so loudly. I’m just gagging. I’m looking at all the (champions’) lockers and it’s amazing. And he said, ‘I’m not broke, I’m just overextended.’ He explained it all to me. But then, he goes on to win the thing (after being six shots behind with 10 holes remaining). I’ve never seen anything like it since.

“That might be the greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed in sports in terms of just sheer ‘slap your own face, spit out your dentures’ amazing. It was (like) North Carolina State dunking the ball to win the (1983 NCAA basketball) title in Albuquerque on an airball. For sheer amazement, there’s Tiger (Woods) in ’97 at the Masters beating people by 12 when he was 21 years. And probably the most amazing achievement I’ve ever seen in sports was him winning four (majors) in a row. Nothing matches that, I don’t think.”

Reilly — who grew up in Boulder, graduated from Boulder High School and the University of Colorado, and remains a resident of Denver — said he received a letter this year from Billy Payne, Augusta National Golf Club chairman, saying that the writer had reached the 25-Masters-covered milestone. That, the letter said, entitled Reilly to one free pass for the week, in addition to his media credential. So for the first time, Reilly’s twentysomething son Jake will accompany him to Augusta National.

Reilly has covered about every sports event imaginable over the last 35 years. He’s been a sports writer for the (Boulder) Daily Camera, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated and ESPN. Along the way, he’s been named national sports writer of the year 11 times.

In June, he’ll be inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, with John Elway being his presenter at the ceremony. That puts the 56-year-old Reilly into some elite company, joining the likes of legendary sports writers Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, Red Smith, Jim Murray, Dick Connor, Jenkins, Frank Deford, Bud Collins, Will McDonough, Peter Gammons and Mitch Albom. Oh, and guys named Ronald Reagan and John Wayne have also been enshrined.

At his request, Reilly will go part-time at ESPN on July 1. He’ll no longer write his popular ESPN column, but still will do TV work for the sports network and possibly write more books and screenplays.

Though Reilly has made a name writing about all different sports — besides his work for newspapers, magazines and web sites, he’s penned 11 books (not counting a few he co-authored) and a screenplay (Leatherheads, starring George Clooney) — he has a special place in his heart for golf. Five years ago, he and son Jake spent two days at Hyland Hills in Westminster while Rick hit 694 shots on the nine-hole, 673-yard, par-3 North course, trying for his first hole-in-one. Jake, who once made an ace barefoot during tryouts for Denver East High School at City Park Golf Course, was along to snag missed shots with a baseball mitt. Rick sometimes hit 20 shots per hole.

It wasn’t until day 2 and shot No. 694 that Reilly hit pay-dirt. It came on a less-than-demanding 52-yard hole.

“So when people say, ‘What are the odds of making a hole-in-one?’, I know: 694 to 1, not counting the rest of my life. In the same way that a woman who can’t get pregnant for years and years, then the couple adopts, and a month after they adopt they get pregnant … a month after (the Hyland Hills ace), on the way to Augusta, I made a hole-in-one.”

And it’s probably no coincidence that several of Reilly’s books are centered around golf. Asked which was the most fun to write, he doesn’t hesitate:

“‘Who’s Your Caddy’ is by far the most fun,” he said. “If that didn’t sell a single book it still would have been the most fun book I ever did. First, I love caddies. They give you the best quotes, they have the most fun, they find the best bars. I just love caddies. So to be a caddie for 12 different people — Jack Nicklaus, Tom Lehman, David Duval, Donald Trump, a blind guy, a $50,000 nassau guy, Jill McGill, John Daly … It was so fun.”

That said, it’s not surprising that the Masters is one of Reilly’s favorite events to cover.

“After 26 of them, it’s like you know every inch of it, you know?” he said. “Every year is amazing, though. I remember after Jack won in ’86, me and Jaime Diaz (now editor-in-chief at Golf World) were so pumped up and we had a bunch of stories still to write, but we had our golf clubs in the trunk of his car. And we got out just outside the gate (of Augusta National) and there was this big gravel parking lot with a big water tower there and we hit drivers off the gravel parking lot. I don’t know what we wanted to do, but I’ll never forget hitting drivers and trying to hit that water tower. Then we had to go back and write all night. I wrote until 7 a.m., I remember that. That was crazy.”

Then after finishing a 3,500-word “game story” for SI, Reilly tried to be one of 20 lucky media folks to get to play Augusta National on Monday, the day after the Masters ended.

“They said, ‘Get here on Monday; the list goes up at 7:30 a.m., and the first 20 guys to sign up get to play,'” he said. “I got there at 7:30 a.m., and 101 Japanese guys were in front of me. I think they spent the whole night out there. And I just went back and went back to sleep.”
 

As Frank Sinatra noted when signing “My Way”, “Regrets, I’ve had a few.”

Then again, who hasn’t?

My biggest related to golf came in 1992. As the golf writer for the (Boulder) Daily Camera newspaper, I was sent to cover the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, primarily because Boulder High and University of Colorado graduate Hale Irwin was just two years removed from his third U.S. Open victory, and because he had an interesting history at Pebble Beach.

Irwin won the 1984 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am after watching his tee shot on the 72nd hole head for the Pacific Ocean before it bounced off the rocks and out into the fairway. He went on to make birdie, force a playoff, then win the tournament.

Anyway, on the final day of the ’92 U.S. Open that Tom Kite won (my media credential is at left), I learned that I was among the winners of a media “lottery”. That meant that I was among a lucky group of journalists that would be allowed to play Pebble Beach for free on Monday, the day following the conclusion of the Open.

That’s when I did one of the stupidest things of my adult life. I turned down the spot because I had some pressing work-related reason to get back to Colorado on that Monday morning. At this point, I can’t even remember the assignment for which I had to get back.

All I know is I’ve regretted that move ever since. I’m sure my boss at the time, Dan Creedon, would have told me to stay in Pebble Beach another day if I had explained. But I dutifully returned on time to Colorado.

Over the years, I’ve brought up this “regret” on occasion, mentally kicking myself each time. Anyway, this apparently made an impression on my oldest daughter, Laura, a former high school golfer.

With that in mind, fast forward to a couple of months ago. My wife and I were at a high school football game when we received a text from Laura seeing if I had anything pressing on my calendar Jan. 14-16 of this year. After replying that there was nothing those days that I couldn’t rearrange, I was told that I should keep those dates free.

Then on Christmas morning, Laura clearly had something up her sleeve in having her present to me being the last opened at our family gathering.

First I read the card: “Didn’t want you to live with this regret. Merry Christmas. Love, Laura” Then, with Laura videotaping, I unwrapped a sheet of paper — a tee time confirmation at Pebble Beach Golf Links for Jan. 15.

Now, having been a golf writer for quite a while, I know what green fees run at Pebble Beach, which is one of the reasons for my regret, knowing that I probably wouldn’t ever be able to justify spending that much on a round of golf.

Laura (pictured at left) graduated from the University of Colorado in the spring of 2013 and had just landed her first full-time job. But I knew the amount she was earning, and suffice it to say that paying for golf at Pebble Beach for her and me was a large portion of her monthly pay. And with her saving up for graduate school, the first words out of my mouth were something like, “Laura, you shouldn’t have done that. That’s way too expensive.”

But, realizing the thought she’d put into it and the exceeding generosity she was demonstrating, the least I could do was be grateful — and very thankful.

Fortunately, Pebble Beach didn’t require us to stay on property in order to play golf, so with an inexpensive hotel and dirt-cheap flights, the only real big expense was the green fees.

So our pilgrimage to one of golf’s meccas became reality last week.

And let me join in the chorus by saying Pebble Beach does live up to its hype, and it’s an experience that will be etched into my memory to my dying days. It was great covering the U.S. Open there 22 years ago, but playing the course takes it to an entirely different level.

I can say that despite finishing with the highest score I’ve shot since I was a beginner at the game. While a good final tally would certainly have been nice, it’s somewhat beside the point. When you’re playing nine holes right on the Pacific Ocean — and the other nine holes very close — on a course with so much history and renown, worrying much about your score seems like quibbling.

I realize plenty of Colorado-based golfers have had the pleasure of playing Pebble Beach, but for many — probably including me — this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As a guy who plays most of his golf at courses that charge $30-$35 per round, this was very tall cotton indeed.

For someone like me, among the most enjoyable parts of playing Pebble Beach was recounting for Laura some of what’s occurred on different holes of the course — Nick Faldo climbing a tree on the 14th hole in search of his ball during the 1992 U.S. Open; the incredibly difficult 14th green that last week had the toughest pin placement I’ve ever encountered; Jack Nicklaus’ 1-iron at No. 17 in the 1972 U.S. Open and Tom Watson’s chip-in there in the 1982 Open; Irwin’s improbable lucky shot on 18; and Tiger Woods’ incredible 273-yard second shot that sliced around the fairway trees and over the ocean, hitting the green on the par-5 18th during the 2010 U.S. Open.

While there are beaches adjacent to Pebble Beach Golf Links, it was the sand on the course with which I became most familiar. Even though I was hitting my driver very good — by my standards — and my irons OK, I visited 11 bunkers. And with quite a few of them having nasty-deep faces on them, I felt like I was having a Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day” experience — reliving the same thing over and over.

Part of the reason I encountered so much sand was sheer thick-headedness. I knew my shots at sea level carried roughly 10 percent less than in Colorado, but it took a while before I could pull the trigger on an 8-iron from 130 yards slightly into the wind, when 150-155 is the norm at mile-high altitude.

The golf aside, the day was all you’d expect. With 77-degree weather, sunny skies, little wind, a jaw-dropping setting and sharing the experience with my daughter and some very nice playing partners (a German couple), a person couldn’t ask for much more. Even the inexplicable empty water jugs throughout the course didn’t mar the joy of walking Pebble Beach.

And it didn’t hurt that I hit my best drive of the day on the intimidating 18th hole, with my ball finishing just to the right of the two trees in the fairway.

The day was capped off by a little souvenir shopping, looking at the old photos of Bing Crosby in the locker room, and with visits to The Lodge and eating establishments overlooking the 18th hole as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

All in all, life doesn’t get much better.

And now, that old regret is long gone.