Surfing: Hurricane Dreams

Published: May 2, 2004

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Surfing: Hurricane Dreams
By Todd Balf (with Joe Glickman)

It’s an unfortunate fact of life in professional surfing that wherever you are, the waves are better elsewhere. The irony didn’t escape those at the U.S. Open of Surfing, America’s richest event, where the big guns were sucking up to three-footers last August at famed Huntington Beach, while all manner of undeserving East Coast yahoos were seeing once-in-a-decade megaswells
from Brooklyn to Boston, courtesy of Hurricane Felix. California’s Rob Machado, a specialist in the small stuff, wasted no time in pulling away from the pack. Paired with reigning world champion Kelly Slater in the men’s final, the 22-year-old executed reentries and snaps of lightning speed on both his forehand and backhand. The women’s competition was also sabotaged by lousy surf
as Australian Neridah Falconer beat fellow Aussie Layne Beachley.

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