Hawaiians rule the waves at Trestles
- Share via
On a balmy, humid afternoon during which two Hawaiians prevailed in major Southern California surfing contests, one of the sport’s biggest fans emerged minus his cardinal and gold but waving imaginary pompoms.
Pete Carroll, USC’s football coach, spent Saturday admiring the methodical manner by which Fred Patacchia and Kai Barger diced through their respective opponents to claim titles in the 6.0 Lowers Pro and Oakley Pro Junior at Lower Trestles in San Clemente.
Carroll might have rooted for more localized athletes on a day that began with quarterfinals in both contests. But he left no doubt that he’s a fan of pro surfing in general.
“It’s incredible to take such an extraordinary sport and put it into this kind of setting and make it into a competition,” said Carroll, himself a wave rider.
The coach added that he’d like to see professional surfers, who often compete in relative obscurity, receive more mainstream media exposure.
“It would liven up the sporting world, especially in Southern California,” Carroll said. “Everybody’s fascinated by the sport and everybody would love to be able to do it.”
Few do it as well as Patacchia, an ASP World Tour veteran who was competing in the 6.0 Lowers Pro, a high-level qualifying contest, merely because it fit into his schedule.
Before the quarterfinals began, in clean two- to four-foot surf, Patacchia said the contest was meaningless to him but convenient because he was passing through the area en route to Tahiti, site of the next World Tour competition.
Hours later, after he had disposed of Carlsbad’s Ben Bourgeois in the 30-minute final, and after being draped by friends in a Hawaiian flag, Patacchia offered a different viewpoint.
“I just said that so as not to sound too cocky,” he said of his previous comments.
In fact, Patacchia, 27, who is ranked No. 3 in the world, was inspired for his final heat by the performance of Maui’s Barger, 19, who triumphed in a dramatic four-man final to win the Oakley Pro Junior.
“He was just electric out there,” Patacchia said of Barger, the reigning ASP world junior champion.
Patacchia was paid $20,000. Bourgeois, 30, last year’s Lowers Pro champion, earned $10,000 but said he’s not trying to qualify for the World Tour, so the World Qualifying Series points are meaningless to him as well.
However, because the contest carried a six-star prime rating -- the highest offered by the ASP for qualifying competitions -- it held critical importance for WQS tour competitors aspiring to advance onto the elite circuit.
Only three remained in contention after Friday’s earlier rounds, and on Saturday, Hawaii’s Dusty Payne lost to Patacchia and San Clemente’s Tanner Gudauskas lost to French surfer Tim Boal in the quarterfinals.
San Clemente’s Nathan Yeomans, 27, who has been striving for years to make the World Tour, will vault into the WQS top 10 after his semifinal appearance against Bourgeois.
(The top 15 on the WQS, at season’s end, qualify for the World Tour.)
“It’s been a dream of mine since I don’t even know when,” Yeomans said.
In the final, Patacchia opened with a long right-hander on which he pulled off a series of vertical top turns for a score of 9.17 out of a possible 10.
Bourgeois took a brief lead after adding a 7.93 to his opening 6.17 in the best-two-waves format. But Patacchia later added a 7.67 and ultimately prevailed, 16.84 to 14.10.
Not an especially high-scoring affair but, as Carroll might say, a win is a win.
--
