Battered Garcia wraps up Hawaiian Pro crown
By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer
HALE'IWA — Sunny Garcia's status as the most successful North Shore surfer of all-time was solidified yesterday with the help of some duct tape.
Bernie Baker • Special to The Advertiser
Impressive enough was Garcia topping a field that included most of the world's top surfers to win the Vans Hawaiian Pro for a record fourth time yesterday at Hale'iwa Ali'i Beach.
Surfing with two torn knee ligaments, Sunny Garcia won the Vans Hawaiian Pro for a record fourth time yesterday.
Throw in the two torn ligaments in his right knee, cramps in his lower back, and a cut on his forehead, and Garcia's latest victory only elevates his reputation as one of surfing's greats.
"I'm speechless because I wasn't expecting to win," said Garcia, who was raised in Wai'anae. "My knee was bothering me, my back was killing me ... I kept stumbling, but making heats and somehow I ended up in the final."
The final day of competition was completed in wave faces that ranged from 10 to 15 feet.
The contest is the first in the prestigious Vans Triple Crown of Surfing series. Garcia already owns a record five Triple Crown titles, and now holds the pole position going into the next two contests.
This week, Garcia was surfing for the first time in more than two months after tearing the medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments in his knee during a motocross accident.
He said he will not even consider the suggested surgery until the Triple Crown series is completed because he needs to fare well in the upcoming contests in order to retain his spot on the elite World Championship Tour.
Yesterday, he competed with his knee wrapped in a brace with duct tape.
"Duct tape fixes everything," he joked after his victory.
Increasing the odds against him, Garcia wiped out on his surfboard in the quarterfinals, opening a small cut on his head, and his lower back had been cramping since Wednesday. Because of that, he could not paddle at full strength.
Bernie Baker • Special to The Advertiser
"I was just trying to save the paddling for catching waves," he said.
Kaua‘i’s Andy Irons, the world’s No. 1-ranked surfer, had an “insane” semifinal, but then cited “bad wave selection” on the way to a fourth-place finish in the final of the Vans Hawaiian Pro.
At 32, and with 16 years of professional surfing experience, Garcia relied on wave-knowledge as much as his powerful ability yesterday.
At the start of the 35-minute final, he stayed in the channel at Ali'i Beach so that he wouldn't have to paddle against the raging rip current. A few minutes after the heat started, Garcia "let the current drift me out and I got lucky."
Indeed, he drifted into the heart of a 10-foot wave that offered a barreling section for him to ride through. The resulting score of 8.83 gave him a lead he would not relinquish.
On his second wave, he completed several bottom-to-top carving maneuvers along the face of another 10-foot wave for a score of 6.67.
After that, the waves suddenly turned sloppy, and the other three finalists could not catch Garcia's two-wave total of 15.5 (each competitor could catch 15 waves, but only the top two count toward the final score).
"It shows the old dog still has a big bite," said Kaua'i's Andy Irons, who placed fourth.
In addition to taking the lead in the Triple Crown standings, Garcia earned $10,000 for the victory.
Tom Whitaker of Australia placed second with a two-wave total of 12.6. The runner-up finish, worth $5,000, was the best showing of Whitaker's career, and secured him a spot on next year's World Championship Tour.
"Nothing compares to competing and doing good in Hawai'i," he said.
The Hawaiian Pro was the final contest on surfing's World Qualifying Series, which helps surfers earn spots on the next year's World Championship Tour.
Jake Paterson of Australia posted some of the top scores of the quarterfinals and semifinals, but finished third in the final. With that, he also finished the year ranked No. 1 on the WQS.
Irons, who is currently ranked No. 1 on the World Championship Tour, never seemed to catch the proper waves in the final.
"I just got bad wave selection and it was just really hard to find the open ones," said Irons, who won the Hawaiian Pro last year.
In one of the semifinal heats, Paterson, Irons and six-time former world champ Kelly Slater provided a high-performance heat down to the final seconds.
Paterson won the semifinal with a near-perfect two-wave total of 18.33 (out of 20); Irons caught a wave at the last minute to place second at 18.03 (the top two finishers in each semifinal advanced to the final). Slater scored a perfect 10 in that semifinal and still did not advance.
"I think I peaked in that (heat)," Irons said. "That semi was insane, one of the best heats I've surfed in a while."
Yesterday's contest did not count toward the World Championship Tour standings, so Irons will take his No. 1 ranking into the next contest, the Rip Curl Cup at Sunset Beach, Nov. 24-Dec. 7.
The next two contests in the Triple Crown — the Rip Curl Cup and the Xbox Gerry Lopez Pipeline Masters — will both count toward the World Championship Tour.
The Roxy Pro, the first jewel in the women's Triple Crown of Surfing, is expected to finish today at Ali'i Beach. For updated status, call 596-7873 or visit triplecrownofsurfing.com.
Vans Hawaiian Pro
1, Sunny Garcia (Hawai'i), $10,000. 2, Tom Whitaker (Australia), $5,000. 3, Jake Paterson (Australia), $4,000. 4, Andy Irons (Hawai'i), $3,000. 5 (tie), Joel Parkinson (Australia) and Mick Fanning (Australia), $2,600. 7 (tie), Kelly Slater (Florida) and Damien Hobgood (Florida), $2,400. 9 (tie), Darren O'Rafferty (Australia), Luke Stedman (Australia), Todd Prestage (Australia) and Mark Occhilupo (Australia), $2,000. 13 (tie), Naohisa Ogawa (Japan), Phillip MacDonald (Australia), Chris Davidson (Australia) and Jason Bogle (Hawai'i), $1,800.
