This was Taj’s third final at Trestles but his first win. Photo: Hurley
I feel like an idiot for showering the Hurley Pro Trestles in hyperbole now. “Premier performance canvas…nowhere to hide at this wave…only the most consistent and explosive variety of surfer will survive…” What we saw these past few days was a world away from that. We thought it would favor youth, we thought it would be a showcase of explosive new school surfing, we thought we’d get a refreshing dose of technical surfing to even out these past few events of tube wrangling. What we got was some OP Pro bullshit. Some will feel a little gypped by that, but not me. I quite enjoy watching these guys throw buckets and vertebral discs out of alignment with endless body torques along this infinitely horseshoeing A-frame. It’s like a surfing version of the hot-dog eating contest when it’s like this: everyone can do it, the question is who wants it more? You always think it’s gonna be the fat kid but, ha, Dane could barely manage a five (hiyo!). Seriously though, in those hot dog contests, it’s always the grizzled veteran in the bandana that somehow stomachs 17 frankfurters and leaves the fat kid face down in the mud. And so it was at Trestles that several Tour grinders – Kai Otton, Travis Logie, CJ Hobgood – trounced their younger touted opponents to dominate the event. In the end, however, it was as we said it would be and two of the Tour’s most competitively savvy progressive surfers took slots one and two on the dais.
If you’ve ever been to Margaret River, you’ll understand a little better how Taj has managed to compile his mind-boggling power-finesse game. From North Point to Rabbit Hill, Gas to Slingshots, and a dozen more beaches, nooks and reefs that are serviced by the Indian Ocean’s fast moving lumps, it is the ultimate training ground for high performance surfing. Taj was an icon of my generation and his two profile films “Sabotaj” and “Montaj” were seminal depictions of progressive surfing for their time. He had a whippet’s frame back then and lived in a cat-like state of readiness ready to crack lips five times before they hit the ground. His critics claimed it was a style that could not last, that such a reliance on speed and reaction time would not give him the longevity of, say, Parko and his pure lines or Slater’s all around fluency.
Taj might no longer be the whippet-cat with the MCAT attack, but when it comes to Trestles, he’s got something more remarkable.
This was Taj’s third final at Trestles but his first win, and he did it on the back of the starchy turns and greasy transitions that have become the signature of his career twilight. He mightn’t travel at the warp speed of his youth but the speed and control he maintains through the most forceful of changes in direction seem to defy possibility on a surface as fluid as the ocean.
His opponent in the final was Julian Wilson–the heir to the Australian prog-surfing throne. Julian, like myself, grew up in the “Sabotaj” and “Montaj“ era and still lists Taj as his number one surfer. Today, the two often travel together, film together and have become close friends. They’re both also very outspoken in their desire to keep dropping banger clips while trying to maintain top flight competitive careers. Their surfing reflects this perfectly, with the cinematic flair that few others on tour possess. It has a come at a cost, however, which seems to be the consistency of their fellow title contenders.
In this event, Julian’s progressive power game couldn’t be touched. You’ve probably seen his hucked air reverse in round three by now, but let’s really break it apart. You see it a quarter of the way through that gorgeous squat bottom turn of his: the back foot jamming on the tail pad. As he makes his approach to the lip, the leaden weight of his back foot going up and over allows him to almost scoop off the top of the wave. When it’s the finner, Julian pivots into the neatest scooping trajectory but when it’s the nose-pick air reverse it’s as if the whole world slows down. Such is the glued positioning of his body against gravity. The rotation sees him stuck in a slow looping motion with nothing to do but hope the amount of projection he’s given himself will put him sunny side up in time to connect with the lip. It’s something alright.
We should probably talk about the world title race here, how Slater’s probably toast, and how Jordy’s got form heading into the last three events, but how Mick will probably take it on account of the remaining events all being tube shootouts. But I’d rather turn our attention to this social networking farce. Cam Richards, God bless him, the 17-year-old friend of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s son, managed to tweet himself into the big show. And good luck to him. My question is: with our convoluted two-tier ranking system, the confusing “you only count your best eight of ten results to win the title,” the forever changing tour format, the forever changing event roster – does surfing really need more gimmicks? The last time the tour tinkered with event wildcards in a fashion as drastic as this, Liam McNamara got punched in the head in the Haleiwa carpark. We can only imagine how Sunny Garcia would have reacted to this had he still been on tour. I can see it now: young Cam walking into the competitor’s area with his iPhone in hand checking his exploding Instagram following. Then a dark shape blocks out the sun. – Jed Smith
