Learn from your wizened elders!

As reported earlier, the Australian triumvirate of Rob Bain, Layne Beachley and Dave Macaulay shot hell out of a crackerjack field of icons, legends, gods of surf etc at the world masters champs in the Azores.

It was a contest that resonated, perhaps, due to nostalgia for a sweeter time.

What struck me, most of all, were the lessons a younger man or woman might learn from these giants of the game. Lessons that, if not a matter of immediate life and death, can determine future happiness.

1. It’s easy to get fat: When you’re a kid your metabolism is a furnace and you can shovel, without fear of disaster, anything down your throat. As you age, that fire dims. Where you once dined like a king, now you must eat like a pauper. With a few exceptions, the men carted a tube of fat around their hips, some the rubber from a tractor. It ain’t called middle-aged spread for nothing. And who surfs their best with twenty pounds strapped in the middle?
2. Sun is crueller to women than men: Already proven by science, but on full reveal in the Azores, the damn sun dries out the fragile, soft skin of a woman and turns it into a vicious prune. What’s Tom Curren? Fifty something and rough as hell? He has the skin of a bikini model of forty. Girls, if you’re not doing it already, cower from that giant grapefruit in the sky.
3. Surfing don’t care how good you were thirty years ago. You could tell who was surfing most days and who had to brush the cobwebs off their surfboards: the hesitation on takeoffs, the botched turns, the very odd wave choice. You gotta work, sure, but find an hour here, an hour there to keep your instrument tuned. Can you imagine the mind-fuck of transitioning from world-class surfer to adult learner?
4. Age don’t necessarily diminish your skill: Luke Egan, who is forty nine, and Rob Bain, a wizened fifty-six, were among those whose surfing was as fresh as it was back when Bill Clinton was screwing his way across America. It ain’t middle age that kills your surfing; it’s lifestyle.
5. Even world champs can’t pull off a surf hat. The former world number two Dave Macaulay became the first world champion surfer to win the title with a surf hat strapped to his head. In my judgement, it wasn’t the most beautiful thing the world has seen.

Once great surfing nation relives glory days!

If you tuned in to the finals of the World Masters Champs, held in the Azores archipelago in the mid-Atlantic, last night you might’ve felt a little bedevilled.

Was this… 1987?

For in the three finals, it wasn’t Brazilians holding the gold cups aloft but surfers from the once-great surfing nation Australia. It may be hard to believe for anyone under thirty or so, but there was a time in modern history when little Australia, with its population of 25 mill, owned pro surfing as much as the Brazilians do now.

Last year in France, Australia finished twelfth at the ISA World Championships, a handful of points ahead of England and Germany and well behind Japan, Peru and Costa Rica, a spectacular fall from grace.

Now let’s examine this event, via excerpts from the WSL announcement.

Australians Rob Bain, Layne Beachley and Dave Macaulay have won the Azores Airlines World Masters Championship in historic fashion today, claiming victory in the Final bouts against Cheyne Horan (AUS), Rochelle Ballard (HAW) and Shane Beschen (HAW) respectively in the Grand Masters, Women’s Masters and Men’s Masters divisions held in good three foot surf at praia de Santa Barbara.  

Rob Bain (AUS) and Cheyne Horan (AUS) took it to the water first in the men’s Grand Masters Final and while the first half of their matchup was a relatively low-scoring affair, Bain started throwing fireworks on the 15 minute mark. 

A late entrant into this event, Bain has been arguably the best surfer all week in his division and dominated every heat he entered until claiming the coveted World Title this morning. The Australian celebrated his 56th birthday today with an incredible performance.

The women’s Masters Final was up next between 7-time World Champion Layne Beachley(AUS) and a former QS Champion and runner-up in the world Rochelle Ballard (HAW).

Beachley’s experience came into play as she perfectly controlled the rest of the Final and walked away with an eighth World Title, but maybe more importantly wrote another page in surfing’s history books winning the first-ever Women’s Masters title.

Dave Macaulay (AUS) and Shane Beschen (HAW) finally paddled out for the day’s last Final in the men’s Masters division. The Australian had a great start and looked fired up, scouring the lineup to find the gems and continuously improving on his scores to impose a big requirement on his opponent. With a couple of 7s on the board, Macaulay remained out of reach for the Hawaiian and the two-time former World No. 3 claimed his first World Title as the oldest competitor in the masters division.

Other highlights of 1987: The Simpsons debuts, Fiji becomes a republic, the stock market falls through the floor and Damien Hardman, also a standout in the Azores, becomes world champion (’87/88).