Hands on your knees like this, and I'm going to go like this.
You tackle him.
Softly.
Whoa!
I meant softly.
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport.
ABC's Wide World of Sports, the standard of broadcasting excellence for a generation.
Waking up where that historic show left off is Kenny Mayne, former sports centre anchor
and dancing with the stars cast off.
Join Kenny as he travels the globe in search of the thrill of victory.
Oh yes.
Have some, England.
And the agony of defeat.
OK, I'm done.
Grab your passports and join us.
This is Kenny Mayne's Wider World of Sports.
Welcome to Wider World of Sports and to my former living room.
We had to sell this joint in order to pay for these trips.
We made several journeys around the world to distant places to bring you back stories
of people and things you've likely never heard of.
Unless in this case you live three hours north of Johannesburg.
But few of you do.
So most of you look at us as modern-day explorers who happen to stay in five-star luxury resorts.
You think Magellan wouldn't have stayed in a nicer hotel if he could have?
You think he wouldn't have purchased a helicopter if flight had been perfected in his time?
Well I do.
And I did.
To hit a golf ball off a mountain in South Africa.
We just got to talk to my wife on the phone.
Most words from her were be careful.
So I've just entered an area where there are lions.
So I can drive up to a helicopter, pick that up in heavy wind to a mountain and hit a golf
ball.
Is that careful enough?
We're on board.
Let's go!
Move it!
Move it!
Coming up to the extreme 19th landing zone, I would put condos there for the view.
Once on relatively safe ground, considering we're about seven miles atop an African mountain,
I gazed at the world's most intimidating hole.
My first look here at extreme 19, you know, if I'm not mistaken, that green looks a lot
like Africa.
Having sufficiently surveyed my challenge, I turned to our club pro Rick to break down
the specifics of the world's longest par 3.
It's horizontally, 400 meters, and vertically about 420 meters.
I'm going to try to hit it to Zimbabwe.
Then you're going to hit it that way.
Should I have gone to the range or anything?
After Rick's geography lesson, I nervously set about the task at hand, nervous because
I thought I was going to die.
Oh, I backed away from that one.
You try hitting a golf ball down the middle when your brain tells you that a Gary player
follow through walk will take you off a cliff.
Fire!
Fire!
Woo!
Still backed out.
On my next swing, I restored some of my manhood.
Not all of it, but at least I didn't run away from the mat.
That ain't bad.
Good length.
Just far left.
Did I mention that Rick wasn't a very helpful professional?
If I don't make the green, I will apologize to all of Africa from this hill right afterward.
Okay, I'm done.
I'm sorry!
I apologize to Africa!
Hey, that's nice and straight.
Having resorted to throwing a ball off the mountain, I chopper down to assess the damage
caused by the 200 balls I sprayed across the African plains.
Okay, so I really made that.
Can I throw it?
Yeah.
Can do it.
Good.
Ball coming!
Then I cheated some more.
Royal and ancients are hating on me right now.
Yes!
Great one!
Who needs a sandwich?
Aye!
I didn't stay high enough, did I?
That's a four.
Good!
That's a four.
Thanks for the advice.
Good one.
Thank you.
I didn't really care about my golf score on this because I actually cheated to get my
four.
I'm done.
I'm moving on with my golf career.
Skipping the Hartford Open.
Here in the show, you'll experience a thrill ride when you see our helicopter pilot, Wilhelm,
take a little bit of a shortcut off of Hanglet Mountain.
By the way, we didn't actually purchase that helicopter.
We stole it.
America, this is a spider monkey.
As authentic as they come, we picked this little bugger up along our journey and adopted
him, named him Theodore, and then we put him right to work, and now he's our boss.
It happens.
You know what?
It happens.
We got on a fast track, and he gives the orders now.
When he wants to change mics, we change mics, and we want to roll extra video.
We roll extra video.
In fact, right now, we'd like to present something called Theodore's Bonus Monkey Business.
We named it that because he's a monkey.
All right, I'm going to give you the condo four, and then we start.
One, two, fight!
I really didn't know how hard to fight, because I didn't know how hard he was fighting.
I didn't know if this is the best he had, because I knew I had a lot more to do, a lot
more.
My mind drifted, thought about other things, like how I stole a candy bar at age five,
how I ate and ran at a Chinese restaurant in high school, anything to keep from thinking
about my imminent demise at the hands of this Zulu stick fighting machine.
Now, rock throwing.
I'm giving out the scores.
OK.
I got them in the head once.
Yeah, no twice.
It was a love pass.
No twice.
Let me see.
Coming up, Kenny heads to England and bowls on grass.
Get yourself some.
England swims to Ireland and bowls on a road, when Kenny Main's wider world of sports returns.
You remember Vilem.
He's the helicopter pilot in South Africa, who gave us a nice safe ride to the top of
a mountain to hit a golf ball.
It was nice of him.
I was never scared.
It just felt like a nice ride.
Like he had the wheel.
We were all good.
Wait for the ride down.
Stop that, Vilem.
My friends who rode with me that day are still shaken by what happened next.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
I was all there.
I love this.
I love you.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Oh, fuck, oh, it's how we do.
This is good, Vilem, you're the shit in the aircraft.
Oh, shit, shit, shit.
Charlie, don't surf.
That was fun.
I think I held my own in the helicopter.
You saw the live version.
Sad.
That ride was tame compared with even dumber things.
things we would do during the rest of the trip.
Let's slow it down a bit though, more than a bit.
Let's head over to England and be thankful
that George Washington was good at his job.
Otherwise we'd all be in rotisserie cricket leagues.
But out of respect for the people and the culture,
we decided to give cricket a go.
Or at least try to answer the question,
what the heck is it?
Cricket is a game played in front of people
with nothing better to do.
Players wear white, they hit a ball with a piece of wood
that looks like an oar.
They don't run bases as much as they run back and forth
between two points, like when you don't have enough players
for Wiffleball.
Oh!
It's time to try to play this silly game.
Meet Ricky, he's a former bowler,
which is like a pitcher in baseball, only more boring.
He's my coach.
So you're gonna teach me how to pitch?
I'm gonna teach you how to bow.
Bow?
Bow.
In cricket we bow.
I'm ready to bowl.
Let's go.
I was brought here from my arm.
Okay.
Four points.
First one is gonna be this position.
Yeah?
That's your first position.
Second one is gonna be that position.
Third one is gonna be that position.
And then the fourth one will be that position.
Is that fair what I just did?
That's very fair.
Okay, just from a standing and then we can do it
with a slight run up later.
Okay.
Depends how good you are.
Yeah, that's good, that's good, that's good.
Boo, yeah.
Yeah, you have to try and hit the stumps though.
You know where near the stumps.
I know that.
That was my first roll though.
Oh, watch it.
That was good, that was good.
What if I told you my arm hurts already?
Ten pounds, I hit the wicket.
On this bow?
You want that?
You got that.
Here we go.
Oh, yes.
Get yourself some.
That's good.
Have some, England.
Does that mean dinner time?
Indeed, our time was running short.
The real players had had their teeth.
It was almost time to resume their boring game.
But first, a few exhibition throws to my coach.
Lucky I could play cricket.
Let's go be alive outfield.
Watch it, watch it.
Behave.
That was a good pitch, right?
A bit too good.
Take it easy.
Came inside him.
I had made a great impression on Ricky and all the fans.
Thanks for your support.
He's dangerous.
Yep.
They love me here.
Dangerous to everybody, dangerous to me.
I feel like there's a lot of haters here right now at the Kia Oval.
He's a disgrace to cricket.
He's American, so that's how it goes.
Thank you, England.
Mastering cricket and winning over the entire British sporting public was child's play.
I wanted some heavy action.
I wanted to empty my wallet, put money down on the craziest sport I'd ever heard of.
In London there's a betting shop on every corner.
This one's called Ladbrokes.
I found out that inside you can wager on American football, British football.
You can bet on whether the sun will rise.
One thing you cannot bet on, Irish road bowling.
I will now swim to Ireland.
And there she is, the River Thames.
Leads right to Ireland and leave my wallet.
I'm not stupid.
Coming up, what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Ireland
than by whipping an iron ball down a country road?
When this game ends, will red-headed women do Irish step-downs?
Do Irish step-downs in celebration?
Kenny goes road bowling when the wider world of sports continues.
We wanted to go to a big-time soccer match while in England,
but the Premier League wouldn't have us.
Something about our visas and credentials not being able to snub.
The only game available to us was in a London suburb called Millwall.
Tonight we were going to go to Millwall.
Right.
Is that a good call?
No.
That's a very bad call.
Yeah, you'll be fine.
Just maybe bring some bodyguards or something with you.
Millwall is a good place to go.
Go to the den.
The den?
I'm going to go straight into the den.
And I'm coming out.
If you're lucky.
We are Millwall.
We are the den.
No one likes us.
No one likes us.
No one likes us.
No one likes us.
We don't care.
I don't care.
And you don't matter.
I don't care.
And you don't matter.
They cheer differently than fans at US Soccer Games
and they sing songs whose lyrics
cannot be heard in their entire time.
They want us not to come.
not to go into the den.
Screw it, let's go.
Yeah, the recitation's there, but you can come down.
It ain't that bad.
You have to come down to the den
in order to see what goes on.
It doesn't matter what you hear about in the press
and what you hear about in the paper.
Yeah, it's a family thing.
Whoa!
My new friends from the den got me
to thinking about all those Millwall haters
I'd met earlier that day.
I started thinking about how wrong they all were.
Kids, sing your song.
And there she is, the River Thames.
Leads right to Ireland and leave my wallet.
I'm not stupid.
Sweet Ireland, I've arrived!
Bring me to Shannonville!
Welcome to Shannonville, Ireland.
We are here for some Irish road bowling.
Two gentlemen will be throwing a 28-ounce ball of iron,
looks like a cannonball, down a street
for one mile and one quarter.
The man who throws the ball the least number of times
is proclaimed the winner.
And people are gambling on this.
Why not?
Two villages have gathered together
on a country road in Ireland.
To carry on a tradition that's been going on so long,
it is traditional.
Meet Christy Mullins,
who dress for the day in vinyl sweatpants.
Notice the thin striping, slimming.
Meet Big Bill Daly, he looks a bit like Super Mario.
He decided blue jeans would be enough to get the job done.
Meet James O'Driscoll,
whose Irish accent is so thick,
some would have suggested subtitles.
He's dressed.
Competition can be fierce at times,
but there's great respect for each other.
He's our Andy North, our color commentator.
The difference being Andy lets me talk once more.
Christy Mullins have given an exhibition about
and he's studying the road, whether if the green is right or not.
Can I ask a question?
Except for his first throw.
I noticed.
So whether he's playing at the left-hand side of that camera.
You can enjoy the countryside, it's relaxation.
I am enjoying it.
Almost in the Beatles.
I like Bill Daly's attitude.
I don't dislike the other gentleman's attitude.
I just like betting.
It was time to pick iron balls.
Christy Mullins was efficient in his selection process,
just grabbed the ball closest to him.
Big Bill Daly took forever in a day,
finally choosing a suitable ball
from ye old sought-off plastic detergent bottle.
Then perhaps related to Gaylord O'Perry,
Bill had his assistant use everything but an emery board
to rough up the iron.
It was time for Big Bill Daly to stretch,
then kick a stone wall, game time.
Christy Mullins threw first.
Notice how he went over the starting line,
every time he threw.
He pushed it right, then put on his warm-up jacket
like a baseball pitcher who surprisingly finds himself on first base.
Is Bill Daly going to take his coat off?
Indeed he would, and like Christy Mullins, cheated.
He went past the line before throwing the ball.
Irish road-balling had begun.
Shannonville, Ireland.
I notice a lot of people standing out in front of where they're throwing.
Do they have great confidence that these guys are going to throw it accurately?
Well, they have, yeah.
Very rarely a person can get a bit of a ball, not too often.
I hit my knee right into the freaking wall.
I'm okay though, don't worry about me.
How much would it suck to take one of these?
Well, it could be serious if you got it in the head.
The screaming Irishman on Big Bill Daly's team is called a road show.
I would say that Bill Daly's road shower is pretty active.
He's very demonstrative.
Bill Daly was aiming for the spotter who stood like a croquet wicket in the middle of the road.
Oh, I like what he did.
Why are people yelling? They're happy for Bill Daly?
They're happy for Bill Daly.
Wouldn't it be great if after the mile and a quarter there was a nice lady serving lamb chops?
We'd be delighted with it.
He needs a big throw here now.
He needs a big throw.
And he's in a very, very difficult position.
That's a good throw.
A rather beautiful throw.
Very accurate.
Very accurate.
That was unspeed.
No offense, but I would argue that Christy Mullen might have thrown about three metres past the line.
I'd say you're exaggerating.
Two.
Two.
We'll say two.
Due to time constraints, we move ahead to later action.
I'm not saying I'm getting fatigued yet, but how much farther is this game going to go on?
We've gone for another kilometre and a half.
So we're only just a quarter of the distance.
We've gone...
This is a test of stamina.
I'm fine.
When this game ends, will red-headed women do Irish step dance in celebration?
Will that happen?
I doubt it this evening.
Big Bill Daley's lead was brief.
Christy Mullen's took command of the match and throw after throw extended his advantage.
Do you think Bill Daley's just a shell of himself right now?
Does he still have some confidence they can pull it off?
Well, he still have confidence to pull it off, but having said that note, it's a no-pill battle for him really.
So like 20 euros, I might as well burn him in the street.
Well, you're sweating.
I'm doing more than sweating.
I just want lamb.
I just want to slaughter a lamb and eat it.
Mullen's is playing real well.
He has three chores, just tremendous chores.
And there's no shuttle bus back?
No shuttle bus back.
Only there'll be a contest back.
So we're walking two and a half miles for our health.
Christy Mullen's made one late mistake.
And Bill Daley crossed the finish line first.
Christy Mullen's had one throw to go past big Bill Daley's lie.
He has this throw.
Here's the finish line, just mere feet away.
But he has to get past his ball with this throw.
If he missed, you'll collect your 20 euros.
You'll collect 40 euros.
Like a game seven in the NHL, there's no bigger moment.
It was all on Mullen's and his thin-striped vinyl sweats now.
Do you believe in miracles?
Actually, it wasn't a miracle.
Christy Mullen's was favored.
After all, he wore vinyl sweats.
Who would bet against a man wearing vinyl sweats
to back a guy wearing Irish mom jeans?
Sadly, me.
After the match, O'Driscoll kept talking.
A lot.
And the competitors, they were all class.
How come red-headed girls aren't doing Irish stepdance right now
in celebration of this?
We're just standing here.
I know. Well, you didn't bring him, obviously.
We have a low budget.
A long walk done.
We left the Irish countryside thinking about men
and their iron balls.
Big fans.
O'Driscoll just wouldn't shut up.
So I grabbed one of his balls and I threw it down a country road
just to see what it would feel like.
It felt good.
Oh!
Four!
That felt great, James.
Good release.
ESPN.com
slash W-W-O-S
for bonus content from around the wider world of sports.
ESPN.com
America!
Well, that's pretty much everything you want to know about sports
in England, Ireland, and South Africa.
You can be sure.
But we didn't quit there.
No, our hard-working crew shot everything and everyone
in every place from sunrise to sunset.
Not only to cut side deals with local tourism boards,
but also to present you with lovely pictures
that are usually accompanied by music at the end of shows,
which it is.
So for everyone associated with wider world of sports,
particularly the silly little spider monkey,
we say enjoy your sporting world.
That's what we say. We didn't really have a great ending,
but we could have a monkey now, wouldn't we?
Yeah.
Ah!
West Coast!
