When anyone is surfing against Kelly Slater in a final we often find ourselves pulling for them because we’ve always loved the underdog. Today, we were on Taj Burrow’s team as he and eight-time world champion Kelly Slater traded waves (sometimes one right behind the other) at the Boost Mobile Pro presented by Hurley.
Coming out of the water at the end of the final Taj was visibly angry. It didn’t seem to be normal frustration with losing a heat. He was mad. And he had every reason to be.
Taj surfed one of the best heats of his life. At the 37 minute mark of the 40 minute heat (before the final both agreed to extend the heat by 10 minutes) he was in the lead with an 18.68. Kelly, who had been comboed earlier in the heat still needed a 8.93 to win it.
But, as he has a knack for doing, Kelly dropped in during the last minute and a half and smacked the lip once, got down the line, smacked it again getting his tail all the way around, reverted, threw in an carving 360, a wraparound cutback, another smack, and then he looked back to see if there was a set coming for Taj. There wasn’t and when Kelly saw that, he hopped to switch-stance and threw a fist into the air to claim victory with a minute to go in the heat.
When competitors surf against Slater things are never as they seem. When he’s on he has an almost magical power to make things go his way. While many on the beach (us included) believed that Taj Burrow had been underscored on his 9.0 and that Kelly Slater had been over-scored on his 9.7, there was little disagreement about Kelly’s final wave.
Kelly’s been winning surf contests for so long that we wonder if his surfing has shaped the judging. It’s not written down anywhere, but it’s almost as if he has become the standard by which all other competitive surfers are judged.
And that, more than anything, may be why Taj Burrow was so upset. Other surfers on the tour can’t become Kelly, so how are they supposed to beat him? It’s a question that will probably stick around as long as Kelly chooses to stay on tour.
On the mic Taj didn’t say much, but in the ASP press release he got it out:
“I felt like I won,” Burrow said. “I don’t think that wave had the scoring potential. I just had a feeling that they were going to give it to him. He had a lot of energy about him. He’s Kelly and he finished it. He got to the end and I knew it was going to be a good score. I don’t know what else I could have done. I picked the best waves and surfed them really well so it’s frustrating. He was really hungry and ended up clinching it.”
[Link: ASPWorldTour]
