From the announcers booth

WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG

Another summer blow out has come and gone. The $150,000 dollar

Philips U.S. Open of Surfing was a week-long extravaganza that Surf

City will remember for a while. The surf was overhead and shreddable

for the whole week. With the back-to-back hurricane swells, a

southern hemi mix plus west wind swell, the surfing level was at an

all time high. The vibe was good in the arena-type setting, just

about every body in the industry was hangin’, not to mention the

media from all across the globe. Huge crowds of spectators, estimated

to be in the hundreds of thousands, came down to see the top surfers

in the world perform. Downtown was jumping too, with the induction

ceremonies, the autograph signings, the nighttime parties -- it was

pretty much packed with tons of surf fans everywhere. The sun

worshipers were lovin’ it too, cause some of those afternoons were

baking hot and glassy, with hardly any wind.

The new criteria on the world tour is for quality, not quantity,

as most of the later heats were scored on two waves. The judges were

looking for committed radical maneuvers in the most critical sections

of the wave face, with style and control and progressive moves in

mind too, and a little bit of distance. We saw more airs thrown in

this year than ever before, but solid carving turns were still the

name of the game. But if you could throw a combo, you could rack up

the big points.

The men’s final was the big showdown with the “Flyin’ Hawaiian”

Kalani Robb surfing way down the beach at “David’s Peak.” Robb was

busting some mean lip bashes and surfing really fast connecting on

some all the way down to the pier. His last wave clinched it for him,

taking the big win and the $10,000 first place prize. Aussie shredder

Trent Munro was hot on Robb’s tail, but needed one more good one.

Another Australian, Tom Whitaker, came in third with some nice heats

along the way. Fourth was Tim Curran from Oxnard who just couldn’t

get the sets in the final, but blew up in the semis with a couple

bomb eight scores and looked like he could win it all.

In juniors it was an almost all Hawaiian final. Kekoa Bacalso came

out on top in the action packed field with some killer waves. Local

Huntington Beach surfer Timmy Reyes was putting on quite a show and

almost had it coming up just short, but ripping pretty hard to second

place. Hawaii’s Joel Centeio and the big island’s Jordy Brough were

third and fourth respectively, as a showcase of the young guns in the

next couple years. The longboarding was classic and Joel Tudor again

had the moves, looking like a flash-back to the 60s. Tudor won the

event, for an incredible sixth U.S. Open title. Second was Malibu’s

Zack Howard who was more in the modern progressive style of surfing

and world champ Colin McPhillips placed third. Local boy Josh Mohr

had the early lead with some hot waves, but couldn’t hold off the

charge in the second half and had to settle for fourth.

In the women’s, former world champ and defending champ Pauline

Menczer took control in the 30-minute final for two titles in a row.

Menczer busted her favorite surfboard in an earlier heat but still

blazed to victory. Second was fellow Aussie Trudy Todd who was

slashin’ it up. Third was Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich and fourth was

Brazil’s Jacqueline Silva, who had her own cheering section on the

sand.

Hopefully you had fun if you were down there, as the play by play

situation announcing and color commentary and music were done by the

“Morganator”, the “Figster” and David Stanfield working as the heckle

and jeckle team. See ya next year.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a six-time West Coast champion, has announced

the U.S. Open of Surfing the last eight years and has been the

KROQ-FM (106.7) surfologist for the last 15 years where he’s done

morning surf reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can

reach him at (714) 536-1058.