If I die tomorrow from my escalating sports addiction, I'll die happy. I've attended every sports event in the world I ever dreamed of experiencing in person.

I've been there for several Game 7s at the World Series and NBA Finals; for 30 straight Super Bowls; for each of golf's Grand Slam tournaments numerous times; for Wimbledon finals all the way back to Chrissie-Martina and Connors-McEnroe; for every leg of Seattle Slew's and Affirmed's Triple Crowns; for Final Fours starting with Bird vs. Magic; for bowls Rose, Cotton, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta; for World Cup finals; and for Summer and Winter Olympics, including the Miracle on Ice night at Lake Placid.

Let's see . . . Same size as before? And before that? And before that?

Have I ever been blessed.

Yes, I've always been fighting column deadlines and the occasional editor back home who second-guessed my opinion or approach. So I haven't exactly been able to savor the drama and panorama as a pure fan. But if you told me I could attend just one last sports event, strictly as a fan, there is no doubt which one I would choose.

The Masters.

The Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby battle for a distant second.

The golf course known as Augusta National is my idea of heaven on Earth. The tournament is the best-run event in sports, and the fans are the best-behaved. And no other event produces consistently greater finishes featuring great players with great stories -- triumphs or collapses.

Something impossibly memorable will happen on Sunday's back nine. It always does.

I was there on Sunday in 1979 when Ed Sneed's five-shot lead went Scarlett O'Hara -- as in "Gone With the Wind" -- and a chain-smoking, quip-cracking character named Fuzzy Zoeller somehow won a playoff as a Masters rookie.

I was there in 1986 when Seve Ballesteros shockingly splashed a 4-iron on No. 15 and Jack Nicklaus somehow won at age 46.

I was there in 1987 when a kid from Augusta, Ga., named Larry Mize somehow chipped in on the second playoff hole to dash Greg Norman's elusive dream.

I was there in 1992 when the gods who rule Amen Corner stopped Fred Couples' dying tee shot on the par-3 12th from tumbling back down the slope into the water -- as every other ball does -- and Couples somehow won his first green jacket.

I was there in 1995 when Ben Crenshaw somehow won after carrying the casket of his teacher, Harvey Penick ... in '96 when Norman somehow blew a six-shot, final-twosome lead to Nick Faldo ... and in '97 when Tiger Woods changed golf by somehow winning by 12.

I was there last year when Phil Mickelson somehow overcame himself and made a last-hole birdie putt that sent him -- and millions of Phil Phans -- leaping into the air as if propelled by Flubber-soled shoes.

Writers can soar to silly heights with lofty pre-tournament prose -- and The Masters almost always exceeds that hype.

So for my last event, give me the "toonament," as they pronounce it in Augusta, Gee-A. Linda Ronstadt and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band once sang that "Augusta, Georgia, is just no place to be." But it is in early April, sweetheart, if you have a Masters badge.

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