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	Bjorn Borg  Walter Iooss Jr.

Most men would be looking to get away from their wives during their 24-hour sports fantasy. Not me. See, my wife is not a sports fan, so when a sporting event resonates with her, it must be something special. I ask for only two stops on my fantasy trip, but she must come along ... on one of them, anyway. We will morning and afternoon at Wimbledon. (In the British dictionary, "morning" and "afternoon" can be used as verbs; in fact, any nouns can be used as verbs.) We don't mind queuing up, and a first-week match will be fine. We did that when we were young, a quarter century ago, and were captivated by two young athletes named Evonne Goolagong and Bjorn Borg. We were in the house the year Borg won his first of five straight championships, and early on in the tournament, after one glimpse of the soulful Swede, my wife proclaimed, "He's going to win." She has viewed herself as something of a tennis seer since then, and we always catch a few matches of Wimbledon on the tube. But we've never gone back; in this fantasy, we will.

If I Concorde (note noun-as-verb usage) back from Wimbledon, I can make it to Augusta by late afternoon. Augusta, you see, owes me one. In 1999, I got picked in the journalists' lottery to play the course on Monday, the day after José Maria Olazábal had won the green jacket. I wasn't ready. I had worked all night on my Masters story, filed it at 7:15 a.m., and was standing on the first tee 45 minutes later, groggy and nervous. Not only was I functioning on zero sleep, but also a course attendant had caught me trying to make a cell phone call to check on my story. No cells at Augusta, an excellent rule -- except when your job may hang on a phone call.

Anyway, I started 8, 7, 7 before I got my bearings. The round is a blur, but here's what I remember: No golf course in the world is as beautiful as Augusta. Not Pine Valley, not St. Andrews, not Pebble Beach. It's a classic in every sense of the word and I want another crack at it. This fantasy might be my only chance.