Sunday sports - overseas was where the action was

Had I not been away over the weekend, I'd have spent Sunday morning in front of the television. For that one weekend, the major sporting events are taking place in a time zone 5 hours ahead of the eastern United States.

• In Scotland, Tiger Woods won his 2nd British Open, and 10th Major championship. He led wire-to-wire, and though there was a brief moment on Sunday when he could have been tied (Olazabal [or maybe Montgomery - I don't remember which] missed the putt), it was never really in jeopardy. He ended up winning by 5, the largest winning margin in The Open Championship (or any other Major) since 2000, when, playing the Old Course at St. Andrews, it was won by 8. By Tiger Woods.
  
  So he's one step closer to achieving his stated goal of passing Jack Nicklaus' record 18 Major championships. Sunday's win in Scotland moved him out of a 3-way tie for 3rd with Gary Player and Ben Hogan. His next Major will tie him for 2nd with Walter Hagen. And then only Nicklaus will have more.
  
  And there's been one more fascinating sub-plot playing out as Nicklaus heads into retirement. Over the past several years, he's gradually stopped playing tournaments, because he can no longer be competitive. It was widely known and covered that this past April's foray at August was his last Masters, and this trip to the Old Course at St. Andrews was his last British Open. But look at this table to see what's happened at Nicklaus' last Major championships:
  
  
  
  

  Nicklaus' Last Majors

  Year	Tournament	Course	Winner
  2005	Masters	Augusta National	Tiger Woods
  2000	US Open	Pebble Beach	Tiger Woods
  2005	British Open	St. Andrews Old Course	Tiger Woods
  2000	PGA Championship	Valhalla	Tiger Woods

  
  
  One of the greatest examples in sporting history of "passing the torch"...



• Also on Sunday, George Hincapie won the race from Lezat-sur-Leze to Pla-d’Adet, the 15th stage of the 2005 Tour de France, to become the first of Lance Armstrong's teammates to win a stage since Armstrong's domination of the race began in 1999. Hincapie joined an early escape, thinking to be positioned to help Armstrong later in the day, but the escape built such a large lead that they never got reeled back in, and Hincapie ended up outsprinting Oscar Pereiro Sio to the line for the stage win.
  
  In the meantime, Armstrong from 1'41" (over Mickael Rasmussen) to 2'46" (over Ivan Basso) by dropping Rasmussen on the final climb to Pla d'Adet. It is too strong to say that Armstrong's clinched the race. There are still a lot of different things that could happen to prevent his winning his seventh straight Tour. But all of them are exceptions, things like accidents or illness. They're done in the Alps. They're done in the Pyrenees. The stages where one of his GC competitors could take time off him and win the race are pretty much over. There's one individual time trial left. There are no more HC or class 1 climbs. No one with a deficit of less than 10 minutes is going to be allowed to break-away. It really is only accident or illness that could prevent the 7th win at this time.