TIGER WINS THE MASTERS
Fourteen years after his last Masters win and 11years after his last major, after fighting through chronic back problems, multiple surgeries, a bout with painkillers and long after just about everybody had written him off, Woods claimed his fifth green jacket in April.
“It’s overwhelming, just because of what’s transpired,” he said afterward. “It’s unreal for me to experience this.”
His win was called the “greatest comeback in sports,” “the feel-good story of the century” and some pundits predicted that people would forever remember where they were when Woods walked off the 18th at Augusta National.
But it might not even have been the most karmic moment in golf in 2019.
(Honorable mention) At the Phoenix Open in late January, PGA Tour pro Gary Woodland helped Amy Bockerstette, a community college golfer with Down Syndrome, finish off one of the most heart-warming pars golf has ever seen. At the U.S. Open in June, he borrowed her mantra — “I’ve got this” — en route to the biggest win of his
RAPTORS WIN THE NBA
The Toronto Raptors, on the other hand, weren’t marked for greatness until that moment in Game 7of a playoff series against Philadelphia, when Kawhi Leonard’s buzzerbeating, fadeaway jumper bounced four times on the rim before capping a 92-90win. “It looked like it was going in the whole time to me,” quipped Raptors rookie coach Nick Nurse afterward.
Lucky or not, the Raptors turned that break into a title. They outlasted Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference final and riding Leonard’s masterful performances on both ends of the floor, ended the Golden State Warriors’ dynastic dreams in six games. Not long after the championship parade wound its way through Toronto, Leonard announced he was leaving town to join the Los Angeles Clippers. career.
Playing with Woodland in front of a big practice-day crowd at the famed 16th hole, Bockerstette sensed he was more nervous than she was. So before each shot, she put Woodland at ease with the words she repeats when tackling life’s other challenges:
Undaunted, Nurse went back to work and has the Raptors back in contention. Over more than three decades, he’d coached in Great Britain, at G-League stops in Des Moines, Iowa, and Edinburg, Texas, and starting over was nothing new. “He looks young,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowery said, “but he’s pretty old.” “I’ve got this.”
Five months later, with Woodland leading the U.S. Open after three rounds, Bockerstette did it again. He’d held the 54-hole lead at a PGA Tour event seven times before and failed to seal the deal. Woodland said Bockerstette’s tweet the night before the final
MOTT WINS FIRST DERBY
A drenching early May rainstorm turned the Churchill Downs track sloppy even before the start of the 145th Kentucky Derby. But the real mess materialized at the end, when Maximum Security, the first horse across the finish line, also became the first winner disqualified for an in-race foul. Track stewards pored over replays for 22agonizing minutes before awarding the win to Country House, ruling that Maximum Security had drifted into the path of War of Will, setting off a dustup that affected at least two other horses. That decision turned the tote board upside-down and handed Bill Mott, a training legend who’d won everything else racing has to offer, his first Kentucky Derby.
“I’m glad I wasn’t in their shoes,” round helped make a difference this time.
“Amy told me a million times when we were on that hole … ‘I’ve got this, I’ve got this,’” Woodland recalled after his win at Pebble Beach. “And I told myself that a million times today, ‘I’ve got this.’”
Mott said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to make the decision in front of over 100,000people and the millions of people that are watching this on TV and around the world.”