Karma Had a Hand in Top 5 'Feel-Good' Sports Moments of 2019

Karma had a career year in 2019.

She draped a green jacket on Tiger Woods, handed soccer’s World Cup to a tough-as-nails U.S. Women’s National Team, shipped the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy to a cool-as-they-come rookie coach and players from the Great White North, righted a wrong that happened a quarter-mile from the finish line at the Kentucky Derby, and turned a baseball tribute to a fallen teammate into something truly unforgettable.

So if sports didn’t make you smile at least once in the last 12 months, well, that’s probably on you. Here are the top five feel-good stories of 2019 (and one honorable mention):

— Fourteen years after his last Masters win and 11 years 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 career.

Playing with Woodland in front of a big practice-day crowd at the famed 16th hole, Bockerstette sensed he was more...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Karma-Had-a-Hand-in-Top-5-Feel-Good-Sports-14929957.php