The Best Year Ever 2008

First, Woods curled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole on Sunday to force the playoff. Then after squandering a three-shot lead on the back nine—his near-gagging in a major tournament was almost as astounding as his ability to soldier on through five rounds—Woods made a four-foot birdie putt on 18 to take the championship to a 91st hole, which he won with a par. While striking a golf ball is not exactly purple-heart material, Tiger's play certainly was valiant. More compelling than his 12-stroke win at Augusta in 1997 and more demanding than his surgical, bunker-free tour of St. Andrews in 2000, the Glory at Torrey was a testament to the man's tenacity as much as his talent.

? Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played a Wimbledon final that stretched the dying light and their shotmaking imaginations to the limits. On a sodden Sunday in July, a nearly five-hour match (minus rain delays) ended at 9:16 p.m. when Federer, the five-time champion, netted a short forehand to lose 9--7 in the fifth set. Federer knew every inch of the All-England Club's worn lawn—he had not lost in 40 matches there. But he was outlasted by a muscle-shirt maestro five years his junior who finally harnessed his talent on that trickiest of surfaces after losing the past two finals to Federer.

There were 149 winners in a match that combined the rhythm and intelligence of a clay court duel with the power and shot making of a grass court slugfest. Nadal and Federer produced tennis of the gods, Thor and Zeus wielding rackets instead of lightning bolts. If John McEnroe, who lost the epic 1980 Wimbledon final to Bjorn Borg and beat Mats Wilander in a spectacular five-set Davis Cup tie two years later, proclaims Nadal-Federer as the greatest match ever, can you argue?

? Bolt, a thunderclap from Jamaica, ran two individual Olympic races, won two gold medals and set two world records in two of the most elemental of human sporting endeavors. (The 100 meters dates to the moment the first caveman decided to challenge his neighbor to a race to that boulder, while the original Olympics, in 776 B.C., consisted of one 200-yard race in which the competitors, legend has it, were naked. Nike did not introduce clothing contracts until the second Olympics.) In the 100, a race usually decided by last-second leans, Bolt put abundant daylight between himself and the fastest men in the world. He might even have nuzzled up to the boundaries of physiology; despite slowing to spread his arms wide in the final 15 meters, he covered the distance in 9.69 seconds, beating his own mark by .03.

Bolt was even better in the 200. He ran a startling 19.30 to topple Michael Johnson's seemingly unapproachable 12-year-old world record by .02. Bolt also ran the third leg on the world-record-setting 4�100 relay team, an added fillip. On the sport's biggest stage, Bolt was time's arrow.

? Never losing his focus, a race or his Napoleon Dynamite smile, Phelps went eight for eight in the Water Cube at a moment when nothing else would have sufficed. He could not have exceeded the pre- Beijing hype. He did equal it, however, with seven world records and a time-stood-still victory in the one race, the 100 butterfly, in which he had to settle for a mere Olympic mark. Phelps surpassed Mark Spitz's seven Olympic gold medals, winning in five individual events and three relays while reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the pool. In a week when American clocks were set to PDT—Phelps Domination Time—he overcame the physiologically jarring morning finals, a goggle malfunction in the 200 butterfly and a mouthy U.S.-trained Serbian by .01 in that 100 fly.

Leisel Jones, the Australian breaststroker who won two golds and one silver, said that watching Phelps was "the highlight of my Olympics.... I couldn't care less about my own swims." Said Simon Burnett, a British swimmer, "He seems to be the only guy who sees the impossible as possible."

IN OTHER years a worst-to-first team in the World Series like Tampa Bay or the buzzer-beating three-pointer in regulation that led to Kansas' overtime win in the NCAA men's final would shine as singular moments, but amid the abundance of spectacular achievement in 2008 the delightful Rays became ho to Mario Chalmers's high-arcing hum. We grew spoiled. We almost shrugged as Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics, a year after winning 24 games, won 66 games and the title; politely nodded at Alexander Ovechkin's 65 goals for the Washington Capitals; merely applauded the cerebral play by Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley that nailed Jason Bartlett at the plate in Game 5, helping ensure that the World Series would be something more than an extended weather report. Venus and Serena Williams returned to win grand slams, but (yawn) we had already witnessed that.

No, the greatest year in sports was not about the quotidian wonders you might see (with a little luck) during any 12-month span but about the most incredible things you will ever see. Which takes us back to that Super Bowl party in Orange County.

THE HOST was a self-coached swimmer who had been an Olympian since 2000 but who, on the morning of Aug. 11, had never won an individual medal. Lezak, at 32 the oldest male on the U.S. team, had carved out a reputation as a professional relay specialist—although that isn't necessarily a compliment in his line of work. The Americans had won the 4�100 freestyle in all seven Olympics in which it had been staged before 2000, but with Lezak in the quartet they came up short of the top step in both Sydney and Athens. As he dived in for the final leg, there was nothing to suggest Lezak was capable of transcendence.