Bells, Day 4: “Torrid journeymen throwing sixes!”

Pro surfing in the post-Kelly, post-Mick era in limbo as Aussie leg fails to fire… 

Doom and gloom? Not me boss. I’m a cheerful pessimist, by nature.

When this planet goes up in smoke the chosen ones will board a silver spaceship and fly mother nature’s seed to a new home in the sun.  It’s just that in the post-Kelly, post-Mick, pre-wavepool era, pro surfing is in limbo. This Aussie leg is failing to fire and we, we being all of us Australian surf fans who are the bedrock of the tour who can support 3 CT’s with a population of just over 20 mill, are wondering if the ground we are standing on is solid.

Or not.

Soph is not reassuring us.

We are bewildered by pro surfing 2018, not depressed.

Do you recall those wonderful scenes from the concluding stages of the best surf film ever made, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now? Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz and Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard are facing off finally after a long tortuous journey. In a tense and extended tete-a-tete, Kurtz delivers his Philosophy of War to Willard, detailing the story of how Viet Cong soldiers went into a village and hacked off the arms of little children who had been vaccinated for polio by the west.

“My God, these men who had love in their hearts,” Kurtz said, “had the strength… the strength to do that… if I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly.”

Correct if wrong, but could not Sophie G solve her audience growth problems, very, very quickly if she had ten divisions of the Australian surf fan at her disposal to import across the world at will?

The American surf fan, with all due respect, is useless.

Utterly, utterly useless.

Can’t support a single CT on either Pacific or Atlantic shores. The hopped-up Okie they appointed to Ambassador of Leisure and Stoke, the great representative of middle America, disappeared without trace down god knows what Hawaiian rabbit hole. Middle America cared more, paid more attention to pro surfing in the mid-sixties when CBS network covered live the Duke Kahanomoku classic. Fact.

Kelly was the most bankable and reliable magic maker in world sport. And for a little while it seemed like John John Florence might repeat the dose, might bestride the pro surfing landscape like Genghis Khan did the Eurasian steppe, as Kelly once did. Conquering all. Vanquishing all. On our behalf. So we could be entertained and transcend our miserable little existences and forget all our flaws and deficiencies.

Being a pro surfing fan, even a reluctant one, was an easy game to play for twenty years. Lock in behind Kelly, then Andy, then Dane, or whatever member of the Coolie crew got you hard, get your mind blown, then hit it and quit while you were ahead. Ignore the back-markers unless they went deep into the draw.

Kelly was the most bankable and reliable magic maker in world sport. And for a little while it seemed like John John Florence might repeat the dose, might bestride the pro surfing landscape like Genghis Khan did the Eurasian steppe, as Kelly once did. Conquering all. Vanquishing all. On our behalf. So we could be entertained and transcend our miserable little existences and forget all our flaws and deficiencies.

But no, now we have to wade through acres and acres of over-coached torrid journeymen viciously hurling sixes and sevens at each other. At least, so far anyhow. John is no Kelly. He won’t dominate generations the way Kelly did, or maybe even Andy did. Ronnie Blakey said the new judging scale was a boon for spectators, that it made it more exciting. Ronnie, as someone who has mingled their sweat down in cattle class with the great unwashed, I know, and you know, that ain’t so.

It seemed as if judges had completely screwed the spread on the opening exchange with Wade Carmichael, handing it to Wade instead of Jordy. A second look showed Wade clearly out-powered him, and did so again to take the heat. Jordy raged against the judging scale but the brutal truth is he safety surfed, knowing safety surfing was to be penalised.”

Six heats played Lumpelstiltskin in raggedy Bells Bowl this morning beginning with Jordy and Wade Carmichael. After Jordy’s definition of flow went public I was ready to deduct a .25 for every spaz-pump he laid down between turns, but he conducted the first wave with perfect flow, throwing golden showers heavenwards on each turn.

It seemed as if judges had completely screwed the spread on the opening exchange with Wade Carmichael, handing it to Wade instead of Jordy. But in retrospect a second look showed Wade clearly out-powered him, and did so again to take the heat. Jordy raged against the judging scale but the brutal truth is he safety surfed, knowing safety surfing was to be penalised and suffered the consequences.

Bourez and Owen Wright were too good for Kolohe and Jesse Mendes. Both could be finalists or winners on current form but you’d be crazy brave to make that call based on the year to date.

I was curious to see how Fanning would be scored now that the judging panel has decreed the Fanning era over. And the answer was, as expected, low. Seabass opened up a two-point spread on the opening exchange and that really should have been a heat winning lead, based on current scoring. The crux of the heat turned on a very, very shonky used car Fanning wheeled to the front of the lot, put the keys in and convinced Zietz to drive away in, “Just give it a test drive maaaayte, great runner, comes with a free case of Balter beer and a softboard for the kids!”

Seabass bought the pup, scored a three and Fanning had nothing much more to do except ride a set wave, protect the lead with priority and enjoy the love of the victorian surf fan.

By the by, how refreshing, how relaxing to just have six heats for the morning then call the thing off? If the Wave Pool comp does nothing else than make suits reconsider format it will have been worth it. Eight hours straight of pro surfing would drive the Dalai Lama to pharmaceuticals. As it turned out, three hours, six heats, felt sublime.

Griff had plenty to say in the booth yesterday. He identified the opening turn as the one being paid most heavily by judges. Incorrectly. At Bells it’s the opening and closing turns. The primacy, recency effect. It’s the first and last things in a sequence that have the strongest effect. The things we remember, judges included.

That is no slur on Griff’s surfing despite a growing mountain of hype. He has the best closing turn on tour. As seen at Haliewa, as seen at Bells this morning. That whole-body huck will win many heats but you need something at the start to make it conclusive. Wilko put two huge turns with air drops as punctuation on a heat winning wave to put the heat away. Griff’s buzzer air-reverse was not enough but did it at least show he knew what could win.

Is Bells going to mean anything by years end? Is Snapper? The deck seems to be completely reshuffled and no one is standing on solid ground. Julian won Snapper then put on a tepid performance for the final heat of the day against Pat Gudauskas. So often he follows up something brilliant with something lame, can’t seem to produce what is needed, despite an army of cliches at his disposal for the post-heat presser and the best all round technique on tour. Is that a problem of will, of destiny or maybe some deficit that can be overcome in time?

Time that is running out. For him, for you, for the human race.

Kidding. Take a joke you misery guts!

Silver spaceships will save us all! And the Australian surf fan will be first picked to colonise space.

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 3 Results:
Heat 1: Wade Carmichael (AUS) 13.30 def. Jordy Smith (ZAF) 12.17
Heat 2: Michel Bourez (PYF) 12.84 def. Kolohe Andino (USA) 9.66
Heat 3: Owen Wright (AUS) 15.14 def. Jesse Mendes (BRA) 10.33
Heat 4: Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 13.77 def. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 12.33
Heat 5: Mick Fanning (AUS) 13.56 def. Sebastian Zietz (HAW) 9.10
Heat 6: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 10.73 def. Julian Wilson (AUS) 9.37

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Remaining Round 3 Matchups:
Heat 7: John John Florence (HAW) vs. Ezekiel Lau (HAW)
Heat 8: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Frederico Morais (PRT)
Heat 9: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Conner Coffin (USA)
Heat 10: Filipe Toledo (BRA) vs. Italo Ferreira (BRA)
Heat 11: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Heat 12: Gabriel Medina (BRA) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)