While The Life of Reilly covers the bases of all major and most other sports, Reilly's writing about golf is especially stellar, and three pieces alone--his chronicle of a round of golf with President Clinton, his account of O.J. Simpson's trials on public golf courses, and his reportage, on deadline, of Jack Nicklaus's sixth victory at Augusta--are worth the volume's greens fee. As beautifully as Reilly can paint the big picture, these pieces display his uncanny eye for detail, his skills as a reporter, and his inventiveness as a writer. On Nicklaus's improbable Masters title at age 46: "Maybe Nicklaus had drawn up a contract with Lucifer for one last major, for that slippery 20th that had eluded him since 1980, for a sixth green blazer. In exchange, Nicklaus would do pro-ams in Hades for the rest of his days. What else could explain it?" What else, indeed.

Reilly provides short postscripts to most of the pieces--some are just pithy, while others open windows onto the writer's craft. They're a nice touch, but then, Reilly's work, in general, is full of them. --Jeff Silverman