World #1 golfer flies to Hawaii to tap into the “savage vitality” of greatest athlete ever Kelly Slater, “He is a wealth of knowledge on peak performing and executing at the biggest moments!”

“When you’re around a guy like that, you always take something out of the encounter. He's a great example of longevity at the highest level."

For a time there in 2014, the Australian golfer and US Masters champ Adam Scott was the number one ranked player in the world, although he’d soon drift down the rankings and never again win a Major. 

Kelly Slater, whom Scott would meet at a golf tournament at Pebble Beach in 2018 and subsequently invite to his wave pool in Lemoore, has never wavered in his ability to win, even waltzing through opponents less than half his age to win the Pipeline Pro last January, a couple of weeks before his fiftieth birthday. 

(Fans will remember Slater, looking like an old-school bull dagger with his thick neck and shaved head, rimming Backdoor for a pair of nines to beat twenty-four-year-old Seth Moniz.)

Now, Scott, who at forty-two is almost a decade younger than Slater, has revealed he met with Slater in Hawaii while there to compete on the PGA’s opening event, hoping to soak up a little of the 11-time world champions magic.

“He is a wealth of knowledge on peak performing, let’s say, and executing at the biggest moments,” said Scott. “I don’t go up there just to have deep and meaningfuls and try and tap into him on that, but when you’re around a guy like that, you always take something out of the encounter. Even yesterday being up there on the North Shore, just going out for a swim in the ocean with him, it sounds too spiritual but a bit of an enlightening experience and just being able to let go a little bit.

“That’s a feeling I get from Kelly a lot, like, ‘Adam, just let go a little bit’.

“I think at this point in my career, it’s a good thing to remember because I’ve done a lot of work over the years, and I know instinctively how to swing the club and chip and putt and do all those things, and you do have to just let go and do it and not be so controlled I think at this point.”

Scott said it’s Slater’s savage vitality that continues to inspire.

“He’s a great example of longevity at the highest level. You never know whether you’re going to get little pearls of wisdom here or there when you’re hanging around people like Kelly Slater. The physical aspect over 40 I think definitely is a big part of playing top, top level golf because you’re playing against mostly mid to young 20-year-olds, even 30-year-olds. It’s a very different physical state. Then the motivation obviously is the big part of mental, so that’s really having a good balance in your life, to be able to maintain the motivation to not get stuck on the tour in a grind kind of mentality and more of it’s just a really good spot to be.

“They’re all the things I’m trying to do. Physically, I’m in a good space. Kelly has worked hard on all those things.”

What do you think you would learn if you were gifted a morning swim with Kelly Slater?

Do you imagine being able to feel his primal source of energy or do you think the admission that you roam BeachGrit occasionally would kill much of the communication between you and he?


Waimea Bay. Photo: Surfline
Waimea Bay. Photo: Surfline

Watch Now: Surfline shames Eddie organizers, livestreams epic Waimea Bay after iconic contest called off due possibility of nasty wind!

Much crow.

Surf fans have been riding a wild rollercoaster, of late. Oh you certainly soared and plummeted on each and every high to low of the Kelly Slater x Giselle Bündchen possible reunion but even more has been this week’s on then off Eddie Aikau Invitational.

Yes, the most iconic surf contest in the world was greenlit for the first time in eight years Monday only to be called off due to a nasty wind forecast Tuesday.

Tears of joy quickly turning into tears of woe.

But did that nasty wind materialize?

Not really and Surfline, official forecasting partner of the World Surf League and having one helluva month, decided to rub contest organizer noses right in it by airing Waimea Bay live from multiple angles complete with replay and commentary.

Like the contest except without prestige.

The coverage has been so good it makes me wonder if Surfline is actually the answer to the World Surf League. Simply filming epic swells at important waves from multiple angles and allowing viewers at home to crown a day’s winner.

You must watch here.


World’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater delights onlookers, paddles out at lightly-considered novelty wave during California’s “bomb swell!”

Riding the Ben Gravy train.

The world’s greatest surfer is, without question, Kelly Slater. Eleven-times a champion, oldest Pipe professional in history, Momentum Generation icon, dater of Gisele Bündchen. The boy from Cocoa Beach has been squarely in our spotlight for thirty-plus years and never, no not once, fails to delight.

But where was Slater during the just-passed “bomb swell?” California, as you know, was graced with its most robust surf in fifty years and Slater does sometimes reside in San Clemente so did he paddle Lower Trestles? Maybe Blacks?

Sand Spit?

No, no and no.

Delighting onlookers, the best of all-time decided to make barrel at a lightly-considered novelty wave in Seal Beach.

Seal Beach?

Seal Beach.

According to photographer Ed Smith, who happened to be there on the beach, “You just started hearing ‘Kelly Slater is here… there he is!’ He paddled out and surfed in front of me the whole time.”

Legend Peter Townend told the Orange County Register that Slater showing up in Seal Beach, heretofore most famous as home of progressive rock/post-hardcore band RX Bandits, would be like Tom Brady arriving at a local football field to toss the ball around or Lebron James coming to a neighborhood court and shooting some hoops. “Well, for Seal Beach Surf grows, Slater turned up to catch a few Southside shore grinders to stoke out the locals,” he added on his socials.

Slater, ever progressive, must certainly have been paying attention to the rise of Ben Gravy and his novelty wave quest over the years. Do you think the Seal Beach session telegraphs a move to the vlogosphere?

Would you watch?

Speaking of football field, the University of Southern California’s school of social work will no longer use the word “field” because of its connotations to slavery.

Exciting times.

Watch here.


Creator of epic Great White VR footage reveals the mind-blowing secret he uses to avoid getting bitten by the twenty-foot behemoths, “It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Ain't no second chances with Great Whites but this amazing technique works every time for photography great Mikey Muller!

As well as being a close pal of my fav shaper Matt Biolos, the American photographer Mike Muller is noted for a lot of things: his celeb portraits of Hollywood’s A-List, Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson, Bobby Downey Jnr etc, the covers for VF, Elle and Esquire, the poster images for Spiderman, the Avengers and his advertising work for the big guns, including Dolce and Gabbana’s handbag campaign with Sharon Stone last year. 

But what thrills, and what drives the fifty-two-year-old snowboarder from northern California, is his work with Great White sharks, specifically filming ‘em in the wild, with a full studio-style rig, outside of cages. 

“I knew that I couldn’t bring the Great White to the studio,” Michael has said, “so I had to bring the studio to the Great White.”

Muller has just released an “immersive 360 degree video experience” for Oculus VR goggles called Into the Now. Four dollars fifty puts you next to a pregnant whale shark, amid a school of hammerheads and face to beak with the most feared predator of ‘em all, the Great White. 

 

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A post shared by Michael Muller (@michaelmuller7)

I don’t got the goggles but it’s almost enough to get me melting the plastic on a five-hundred dollar pair. 

But what is real interesting about Muller is his technique for avoiding getting mauled while shooting. This is the Great White, after all. Ain’t no second chances. 

“Great Whites are ambush predators,” says Muller. “It’s not the shark that you see, not the twenty-foot shark just over there – as long as we have eye contact …my head is on a swivel because eventually I’ll look down and see that two-and-a-half tons coming at me at twenty miles per hour like a missile. I then have to turn and swim head on at the shark. The minute I start swimming towards it, it looks at me, (thinks) I don’t like you, you’re a potential predator.”

In a podcast recorded with Rich Roll, Muller describes the day eight years ago when he learned the technique from the legendary South African diver and photographer Morne Hardenberg. 

“My flippers were down and I see a shark coming at me, like, full speed,” says Muller. “I grab my camera and I remember thinking rubber meets the road, here we go, I’m ready. I’m looking down and off this shoulder Mornay, holding his RED camera with two arms and the lights, goes head-on straight on at it. I watched it bank off and my first thought was, that’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in my life. 

“Second thought was, he just saved my life.

“Third thought was, that looks like that’s what you do. When we got to the surface he said, okay, when they come at you, you have to turn and swim head-on at them… the next day we were out of the cage, and we had two of ‘em come at us. One at him. One at me. I had no choice. I did it, alright here we go. If you freeze you’re done.” 

Why’s it work? 

“Here’s the thing,” says Muller. “Everything in the ocean, besides Orcas, swim away from that animal. Everything. The minute you start swimming towards it, that’s something they’re not used to. And, nothing touches that animal. Give it a little pinch and it’s gone.” 


“What a beautiful swim spoiled by an old man, who used a shower next to me to empty his bowels. Then he tried to break it and flush it out. So he blocked the drainage with the whole mess.”

Australia goes into meltdown after man empties bowels in busy beach shower, “Firstly I could smell it, then I saw his feet breaking it up!”

“I hope you had your thongs on!”

After several disastrous summers cursed by, first, pestilence, then rain, Australia’s east coast has eased into the sort of long, balmy days perfumed by great bursts of frangipani long associated with the deeply pleasant island continent.

The disease and wet has given this year a sweetness unparalleled in my lifetime, an urgent need to enjoy it while we can.

In Sydney, a city of almost five-and-a-half-million souls, all roads lead to the beach, usually Cronulla, Bondi or Manly.

And it’s in Manly, where we find a man in his harvest years, “relieving his bowels into a surf club public shower.”

Riso Glogo, who lives in the monied beachside suburb, described his experience of watching the “old man” enjoying his public toileting.

“What a beautiful swim spoiled by an old man, who used a shower next to me to empty his bowels. Then he tried to break it and flush it out. So he blocked the drainage with the whole mess.”

Glogo later told a local tabloid,

“’This was quite disgusting. Firstly I could smell it … then I saw [his] feet breaking [it up]. That made me feel sick … [and I] went outside to shower myself again.”

The response from locals on the Facebook thread was mostly humorous,

“I hope you had your thongs on,” said one.

“I’ve looked up the law on this situation and found out if it’s not claimed in seven days you can keep it,” quipped another.