A Sports Filled Weekend Ahead

Most of the fun is taking place across the pond, which means big time differences and preposterous wakeup calls for those who want to enjoy these world-class activities.

Is that you? Or do you prefer to sleep? Your choice will dictate just how cranky you are when you go back to work on Monday. Meanwhile, here’s your Weekend TV Six-Pack. Hate to ask you to get out of bed to plunk your heiner in the recliner so carefully select your viewing location now…

Come Saturday morning, it’s the British Open or the Tour de France (or some combination of your choosing). The Open, from Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, begins at 4:30 a.m. ET on Saturday morning on the Golf Channel. Go milk the cows, feed the chickens, and then settle down for some links play. The coverage moves to NBC at 7 a.m. and remains there until 3 p.m. For the cycling aficionados, the Tour de France’s second-to-last stage takes place on your TV at 8 a.m. on NBC Sports. Chris Froome of Great Britain appears ready to claim a fourth title but that won’t be official until the following morning.

Which means the same drill on Sunday. The Open hits Golf Channel at 4:30 a.m. and lingers there until 7 a.m. when it migrates to NBC and stays put until the conclusion at 2 p.m. The Tour de France rolls through Paris at 8 a.m. on NBC Sports.

NASCAR’s Brickyard 400, from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will give you a break from golf clubs and bicycles. The guys who go round and round get the green flag a bit after 2:30 p.m. on Sunday on NBC.

Now, this old blog likes to make a joke or two (are they noticeable?) now and then, but here we kid you not. ESPN’s Saturday afternoon offering at 2 p.m. is the Championship of Bags. No, not a sack race. No, not a grocery store challenge. It’s Cornhole, the backyard bean-bag game, played at an extraordinary skill level with arcane strategies (that was one of the jokes, or sarcasm or hyperbole).

This is really on. And the sport is really called Cornhole.

Contestants, protect yourselves at all times.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman