Or wait… did it?
Good waves cure most ills, as we well know.
But historic low level trauma is hard to cut through. That’s what this Margaret River comp felt like. On again, off again. Insufficient waves. Achingly long lulls. Hanging on to the vain hope of something good on the final day. Watching compelling narratives spool out, then sag.
No-one within the WSL will understand this, of course. All they will see is a successful finals day and believe it evaporates memories of the drudgery that brought us there.
The final, between the enigmatic John Florence and Jack Robinson, a man forever hovering between psychopathy and transcendence, was valid. Both traded in numbers deemed to be excellent on the arbitrary, fluid, and oft controversial scale set by the WSL. But there was no controversy this time.
Florence gave a good account, and will still lay claim in the minds of many to the title of best surfer at Margaret River.
But Jack Robinson won, and he would stand vehemently against this. He did so in the final by mainlining uncut panache, leaving his best performance til last in tantric mastery of heat strategy.
His 9.10 was unquestionably the best wave of the heat. It was only two turns, but the opener was the best of the whole competition. It was a turn worthy of a poster, whipping him back into the pocket with such ferocity that he momentarily disappeared behind the falling lip.
Yet he emerged, as he always does, to connect with the end section and add exclamation to ecstasy. The resulting finger wagging claim was well-warranted.
Not so justified was the hard sell on the final wave of his quarter final against Imaikalani deVault. There was doubtful conjecture in the booth about whether he’d got the 7.17 he needed to turn the heat, yet the score came in at 8.33, perhaps owing mostly to his vigorous reaction.
Judges are prone to this sort of emotional response, especially in the final moments of heats or from surfers who use claims sparingly. They latch onto narratives like the rest of us, and this can skew the scores into the highly subjective region of objectivity.
They’d been dying to give John a ten, as they eventually did in his semi final match with wildcard George Pittar.
How many excellent scores has Florence had now at Margaret River? How good is he here?
And, oh, what’s that board he’s riding!
Please, sir, won’t you tell me again?
When Florence blew out the tail in a layback no-one should’ve recovered from, the judging tower squealed with the collective glee of middle-aged men watching bias confirmed.
In the booth, Taj Burrow, ageless as a woodland sprite, assessed the score at a 9.63. Both wonderfully precise and highly agreeable.
Yet in the judges tower chubby digits had been poised for John, just waiting to punch in perfection. Snot and piss and tears flew.
Unanimous tens!
Somewhere, Clay Marzo peered at his phone and furrowed his brow.
It was a great wave, a spectacular wave, but did it really deserve a premium insulated tub?
Does any?
Worthy of note were the performances of Seth Moniz, who looked better than he ever has. According to commentary, the strategy in the Moniz camp was a code word to encapsulate his approach. That word was “Moledo”, a neologic mash-up of Moniz and Toledo.
The approach worked. Not only did Moniz notch his best finish in a long time, but he vaulted eleven places in the rankings and far away from the cut line he’d been hovering round.
It was a valid strategy, for surely Filipe would’ve made mincemeat of Margaret River over the past couple of weeks. No Box to worry about, just mediocre Mainbreak walls to eke power and speed where others would find none.
Moniz had clearly been watching lots of tape, and in the glare of a midday sun you’d have been forgiven for mistaking him for Toledo. His rails were incisive, his surfing faster and more torquey than usual. And his arm placement, those high elbows so emblematic of Toledo’s style, was picture perfect.
But performances like this, the entertaining finals, the solid waves, all of it was too long coming.
Was the waiting period for this competition really only ten days? It felt double that.
We need these things done in two.
Put simply: we need fewer surfers and better waves.
The first thing is easy, and from this point forward will be somewhat addressed.
The second is a little more complex. You can’t script the weather, but you can give yourself a better shot at aligning with it.
Overlapping heats should be standard. This format speeds progress through rounds, maximises good waves, and alleviates lapses in action.
On days like this, a lot might happen in a short space of time, and I’m sure judges hate it when a flurry of waves leads to a backlog of scores. But it’s not about them, it’s about the viewing experience.
This is the mistake made relentlessly by the WSL. They remain ignorant of the end user experience, the fans that might make or break them.
I’m sure ten days of trawling wineries in Western Australia or scoring waves around the Peniche peninsula (everywhere but the contest site) suits the WSL employees just fine. If I was part of that bubble I’d love it, too. Maybe I would even grin inanely and happily spruik milk substitutes and ladder companies.
Of course there’s a wall of positive noise. Why would you challenge such a cushy gig? And of course they’re pumped on a final day of good waves. It’s the climax of a ten day holiday!
Whether it’s wilful or blinkered ignorance of their failures hardly matters.
To its detriment, the World Surf League is still largely an insular, jobs-for-the-boys, cottage industry. It is resistant to change and ignorant of simple truths.
They might think that one day of good waves cures all, but it’s a handjob without eye contact.
How many days of glaring mediocrity is that really worth? How much time and sustained interest can we really give?
It’s hard to love pro surfing when it doesn’t love you back.
The WSL wants to be a serious sports league. Its existence depends on it. But no amount of brand activations or gushing superlatives can compensate for the fact that competitions can only muster a few hours of genuine entertainment among days of mush.
And that, quite simply, will be the death of it.
