I love college basketball dearly, so March and early April come as close to paradise as the calendar gets. But it wasn’t the NCAA tournament theme that brought a smile to my face during Monday’s championship game.

It was a different theme. It was the Masters.

Football has the Super Bowl, baseball has the World Series, track and field and swimming and diving have the Olympics. But to call the Masters golf’s “championship” or “pinnacle,” although true, is to sell it short because it is oh so much more. It transcends the terms and titles usually associated with sport. The Masters is an experience, one to be shared and one to be remembered, far beyond the actual drives and putts.

The shots give us a reason to get together and tune in. And they rarely disappoint. The montage of the Masters’ greatest shots grows every year, its most recent addition being Bubba Watson’s 90-degree hook shot last year. But the joy of the shot hardly matches watching Bubba, after claiming the green jacket, collapse into his mother’s arms, waiting with a bursting anxiety and tears streaming down his face to run home to his wife and their 1-month-old baby boy. We cheered like fans at the shot. We cried like humans at the mother-son embrace.

The top shot of that Masters’ montage may belong to Tiger Woods for his 16th hole chip-in in 2005 — the shot that rolled and rolled until it reached the hole, where it waited and waited, finally dropping in and sending Tiger and the crowd into a frenzy. As sports moments go, that shot ranks with any buzzer beater or Hail Mary. But that moment resonates with me for a different reason, far removed from the triviality of sports.

I watched the 2005 Masters with my dad and grandfather outdoors under a warm April sun in our new screened-in porch. Perhaps constructed for this very day, it housed the closest thing to a genuine Masters experience as one can get in central Illinois. There’s no other place the two biggest golf fans I know would have been.

One role model, my father, sat in one corner, feet up with a drink and cigar by his side. His hands rested proudly on either arm rest of his new patio furniture. In the other corner, another role model, my grandfather, or, as he was nicknamed, Pal. He mimicked my father: feet up, eyes glued to the screen. His hands, sunbaked and worn from decades of labor, rested on his large midsection. I sat next to the television, a 13-year-old just elated to be invited to the party.

The tournament, as usual, compelled and thrilled. It came to the 16th hole with Tiger needing a big shot. My recollection of that moment has since been flooded by replays and highlights of the chip, so I can picture the actual shot well. But my true memory involves the men in the room.

Both men recognized the potential of the shot along with the patrons at Augusta, and they stirred with the growing roar of the crowd. My dad lifted his feet off of the foot rest, placed them on the ground and leaned forward. The ball kept rolling. Pal kept his feet up, but lifted his head off the back of the chair ever so slightly, leaning in to see the ball more clearly. The ball kept rolling. Both men let out an audible, “Oh!” as the ball rested by the hole, Nike symbol up, seemingly stopped for good.

Then it fell in. Pal leaned his head back, hands still resting on his stomach and let out a deep belly laugh, saying more than any exclamation ever could. A smile and a laugh from a man watching an unforgettable moment on his favorite weekend of the year, and it couldn’t have been more genuine.

It was the last Masters that Pal ever saw, and that laugh of disbelief stands as one of my final memories of my grandfather. It’s perhaps the best memory I have, a memory only the Masters can bring. And when the Masters rolls around this weekend, I’ll think of him and smile.

I’ll also think of my dad. “I just want to see it,” he would say about Augusta National. And wouldn’t you know it, after years and years of trying for tickets, this week he’ll get his chance. He’s attending a practice round. He could care less about the golfers. What do they matter? Top-ranked players will be replaced, great shots will be surpassed by better shots and the moments of “sports” will fade, just as they always do.

He’s more interested in seeing the hallowed grounds and feeling all they have to hold. He’ll remember his favorite tournaments and recall his memories of watching them. He’ll appreciate the course’s beauty. And, undoubtedly, he’ll think of his father, too.

ESPN’s Wright Thompson wrote a column several years ago about the father-son charm of the Masters. I’d wager no one has ever read it without crying. But on the column, Thompson says, “I didn’t write that story … I opened a vein.”

What other sporting event can house such emotionally charged memories — such love? It’s been termed “A tradition unlike any other.” That’s exactly right. My dad and grandpa would agree.

Jack is a senior in LAS. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JCassidy10.