Tuesday, July 28, 1998
A Blast From
the Past
Michael Ho and Buzzy Kerbox
By Greg Ambrose
are among 32 legendary surfers
who will compete in the
Oxbow World Masters
Championship
Special to the Star-BulletinEVEN though Michael Ho has been awarded the status of master surfer, he is happiest when embroiled in the heat of battle.
When European sports apparel company Oxbow decided to pay homage to the world's aging former surf champions with a special masters contest last year in Fiji, Ho wasn't satisfied with the honor of being invited to compete. He was dead set on winning.
Ho's canny backside tube-riding in the flawless waves at Cloudbreak earned him second place, but he will settle for nothing less than first in this year's Oxbow World Masters Championship.
One of Ho's many attributes is an amazing ability to ferret out a tube when his competitors can't even catch whiff of a hollow wave.
The 32 special elder surfers invited to the Oxbow Masters all attained champion status by virtue of their competitive fires. But while most have eased into a more comfortable relationship with the ocean, Ho still pushes himself relentlessly at age 41.
Last winter he dominated the world's top professional surfers, many half his age, to take second place in the Chiemsee Pipe Masters at the Banzai Pipeline.
The Oxbow Masters will be held Aug. 9-16 at Puerto Escondido's Mexican Pipeline, where 10-foot tubes peel right and left, offering tube master Ho a choice of which way to face the wave, frontside or backside.
Although disappointed that the sponsor abandoned the original contest site in the dream tubes at Nias due to political instability in Indonesia, Ho is stoked to discover if Puerto Escondido's waves are as board-breaking tough as reputed.
"It seems like to win this contest I'll have to get through the whole week in one piece. It sounds pretty gnarly," he said. "I'm bringing 11 new boards because the waves are so fierce. I've been dying to go there for years."
Disappointed by his loss to Australian Terry Richardson last year, Ho isn't alone in his determination to come out on top in Mexico.
"Everybody was out trying to win in Fiji. Nobody was cruising," he said.
"This year is going to be tougher. Everyone is a little more in shape, more on target, and they will have stepped it up a notch."
Maui's Buzzy Kerbox likes his chances in Mexico after an energizing session in long, perfect waves at Maalaea last month.
"I had this one barrel that was so deep and so long, I said 'Hey, let's have this contest right now on a hollow right and I think I can do something.'" Kerbox said. "It will be fun to go to a place I've never been."
Kerbox, 41, also was pleased by the camaraderie of his former foes during last year's inaugural masters event.
"It was great to bring all the old-timers together who haven't seen each other in 10 years, and talk story and talk about our families, and still compete.
"In longboard events I'm like the target. The young guys are out to get me. In the masters contest we're all out to get each other."
Oxbow has added 12 surfers to last year's total of 24 of the world's greatest professional surfers from the 1970s and '80s, including such luminaries as former world champions Shaun Tomson and Rabbit Bartholomew, and Hawaii heavyweights Bobby Owens, Dane Kealoha and Jeff Hakman.
Ho is grateful to Oxbow for giving the aging heroes a chance to compete again, but has a vision of how the contest could be improved.
"It would be nice to see it open up a little bit," Ho said.
With trials held throughout the world, the top 16 trials finishers could join the 32 invited surfers for the main event, he said. That way more sponsors would be inclined to support the masters competition, and the older surfers would attract more sponsors to revive their careers.
"There are a bunch of hot master surfers who haven't been invited," Ho said.
