It doesn't take much for Larry Giebelhausen to recall all the events which surrounded his golfing dream.

By now, you've probably heard Giebelhausen's story. He is the Chicago native who was selected to play in the Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge after his six-word essay, "I'm a cop, I'll shoot low!" was chosen from almost 74,000 entries. His prize was getting to play Bethpage Black, site of this year's U.S. Open, in a foursome which included Ben Roethlisberger, Justin Timberlake and Michael Jordan.

"Is there a question about this entire experience that you haven't been asked yet?" I asked Giebelhausen, who has lived and worked in Phoenix, Ariz., for the past two decades, at the beginning of our phone conversation.

"Probably not," he responded, then he rattled off some of the things he's answered lately. Before I could even find out about the golfing itself, Larry had already beaten me to it.

"I'll start kind of at the beginning," the 59-year-old police lieutenant said.

Over the next 30 minutes, Giebelhausen took me on a detailed journey of his Bethpage experience, and I mostly just listened. He told me about the 90 he shot during Thursday's practice round when he didn't he even feel like he hit the ball well. How Anthony Kim had played along with the group that day and how Fred Couples, his favorite player, walked with the group and shot the breeze with him throughout the day.

"That was actually fun," Giebelhausen said of the practice round. "It was loose, a little bit of fun trash-talking. That was actually probably the most fun of the playing golf -- more fun than Friday because of the pressure."

And then there was Friday. The day when the cameras were rolling for the show that NBC was putting together. The day when a few thousand people showed up to watch the three celebrities play with some guy from Phoenix with a 4 handicap. Anybody would have been nervous, but Giebelhausen said he doesn't usually get awed by celebrities -- he's a cop, after all, he's seen everything.

"Friday, I probably had one of the best warm-up sessions ever," Giebelhausen recalled. "There were 40 to 50 people in the stands right behind the driving range watching us hit balls. I was there first warming up and then the other guys start coming around, and I was just hitting everything -- my irons so flush, I thought, 'That's pretty good, I've got people watching, I've got cameras, people taking pictures. I'm going through the bag and I'm hitting everything good and I'm feeling fine.'

"We get to the first tee and if they had let me hit off first who knows if I would have been better off," Giebelhausen continues. "As they start announcing names, Jordan hits first, the crowd cheers, I start to see a little twinge in my stomach and then Ben is next and I start to feel a little gurgle. And then Justin goes and by that time, I'm looking for a bathroom."

With his stomach in knots, Giebelhausen stepped to the tee and knocked his first tee shot into the rough. As we continue to talk, I realize quickly that Giebelhausen hasn't forgotten much of anything. Not only does he remember most of the shots he took, he also remembers many of the small details of the day. The par on number two, the rain which started on number three, the three times his back foot slipped out from under him. The combination of humidity, nerves and energy which made him sweat through his sweater.

You get the picture.

Giebelhausen's main goal before Friday's round was to break 100, but a 10 on number 16 basically put that idea to rest.

"I was just demoralized," Giebelhausen told me, his voice trailing off. "I'm competitive. I expected to do well, 'cause I played the course the day before and played pretty well, but I hit it in places that I had not been before."

In the end, Giebelhausen figured that the intensity of such a pressure-packed round caught up with him.

"It's like four months of anticipation. Of trying to [win] the contest and practicing and 'Am I the one?' And then the last six weeks it's, we're practicing and getting ready for that one day, that one round, that one moment. I think it was more the moment," he said, trying to put the round and the past four months of his life into context. "It wasn't the fact that it was Michael and it was Ben and it was Justin, it was the fact that there's 3 to 4,000 people, it's going to be on TV ... I think it was more that than the celebrity aspect of it."

Ah, now there's where the other part of this story comes in. For as frustrated as Giebelhausen was at the way he played on Friday, even he realized how cool it was to play in a group which featured a two-time Super Bowl champion in Roethlisberger ("Very genuine, very nice and very friendly," he said), A multi-platinum recording artist in Timberlake ("Just a nice kid all the way through,") and the greatest basketball player of all time in Jordan ("Very congenial, very nice. My mother got a big kick out of meeting him").

"They were regular guys," Giebelhausen said of his celebrity partners, who were part of a group which also consisted of an unlikely trio of "caddies" on Friday in Kim, Couples and Rocco Mediate. "They were laughing going down the fairway. There was trash-talking ... we had fun. I'm not really awed by a celebrity, per se. They were just nice guys, they were friendly, and we got along well."

"It's not like we're drinking buddies," Giebelhausen continued. "But, I got to know them a little bit,"

He got to have the type of interaction with these guys that most fans dream about.

Timberlake came over and asked him all about his family the first time they met. Jordan asked him a little bit about Chicago and his work with the CPD back in the day. He watched Jordan and Roethlisberger team up and beat Kim and Timberlake in a little side bet that came down to the 18th hole.

"I have no idea what kind of money was involved," Giebelhausen admitted. "It wasn't overtly discussed. Whether it was $10 or $10,000, I don't know, but they did have a game."

About the only thing Giebelhausen can't remember in detail about his time on the course are his conversations with the most famous Chicago athlete of them all.

"A lot of it's a blur," he admitted, almost apologetically regarding his time with Jordan. "It was just two guys playing golf, talking about a little past history."

The same cannot be said about his time with Couples. When Giebelhausen was struggling on Friday afternoon, it was Couples who came over and put his arm around him and offered some words of encouragement. The veteran PGA pro told him a story about a Ryder Cup experience he had with Raymond Floyd back in Kiawah Island, S.C., almost 20 years ago.

"Hey, everybody goes through it," Couples told Giebelhausen. "Just get out there and hit the ball."

It was one of many moments which sticks out in Giebelhausen's mind now.

"For whatever reason, people like Fred Couples and I'm no different," he explained. "I've been a fan of Fred's for 25 years. I didn't know what to expect, when you meet these people are they going to be smug? Are they stand-offish? Fred could not have been nicer."

So nice, in fact, that Couples made sure that his girlfriend (who also lives out in Phoenix) got all of Giebelhausen's information so that they could meet up for dinner the next time he is in town.

How in the world could anybody top an experience that included stories like that?

Giebelhausen said a hole-in-one would be nice. Getting a chance to play in a pro-am would be cool, too. There's even talk that the die-hard Cubs fan might be able to throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field in the near future. But, no matter what he does, Giebelhausen is resigned to the fact he may never be able to experience something as cool as the time he teed it up with MJ and company before the U.S. Open.

"I can't imagine ever having an experience like this again, where you're the center of attention," Giebelhausen said. "You're playing with people like Michael Jordan, Fred's there, Ben and Justin, you tell me, I don't know what kind of experience really tops that in the golf world for an amateur like me, probably nothing."

If only he could have shaved just a few more strokes off his total.

"It's the re-used phrase, but it's the experience of a lifetime," Giebelhausen said. "And it is, and I'll never ever experience that again, unfortunately, 'cause I would like a mulligan."

As we got ready to wrap up our conversation though, Giebelhausen still couldn't get over the fact he played so poorly during Friday's round.

"I'd like to think next time I'd do better," he said wistfully. "I got asked by somebody if I were to go out there again, same conditions, do I feel I could break 100, and my answer is 'Absolutely,' because I played like dog doo, and I still almost broke 100 if I hadn't had a 10 I would have broken 100, I think I could go out there and break 90."

Until he gets his next chance, Giebelhausen will have to be content with his star-studded 101. After a little more time, and maybe a dinner or two with his new buddy Fred, I think he'll get over it.

"I was pretty bummed a few days after the tournament," Giebelhausen admitted. "But I was reminded that a zillion people would have loved to have been in my shoes. I'm grateful for this experience."

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