1968 Santa Cruz Pro-Am

"International Pro-Am Friday," Bill Lovejoy, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Nov 27, 1968

Some of the best surfers in the world will gather at Santa Cruz’ Steamer Lane on Friday for the second annual Santa Cruz Invitational Pro-Am International Surf Contest.

The affair is sponsored by the local Steamer Lane Surf Club and is directed by Dr. Robert Scott of Gilroy. Scott is president of the Western Surfing Association.

Starting time for all three days of the event is 10 a.m. with sundown marking the end of competition.

Surfing standouts such as Debbie Gustavson of Santa Cruz and Ron Ball of San Jose, current World Champion tandem surfers, will be present to compete in the contest which runs through Sunday.

Surfers in the professional division will be after a total of $1000 in prize money with the tag for first place coming to $400.

There will also be a professional division for the women this year with the top cash prize set at $150.

Jeff Hakman, winner of the Duke Kahanomoku contest in Hawaii last year, will be on hand along with last year's Santa Cruz winner Corky Carroll, and Mike Doyle.

Saturday night, in conjunction with the contest, the Steamer Lane Surf Club will stage a three-band dance at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, starting at 8:30. Also on Saturday night, the WSA Board of Directors will meet at the Pasatiempo Inn to discuss further plans for contests next year on the West Coast.

Russ Hughes, Nat Young and Midget Farrelly of Australia, who between them won second through fourth places in the World Championships at Rincon, Puerto Rico, earlier this month, will be entered here.

Sunday, a winning couple from ABC's Dating Game will be the guests of honor at the contest.

Steamer Lane has suffered from a lack of surf so far this week as tides have been running high during most of the daylight hours. However, the tides are expected to drop by the weekend, making for good conditions.

Scott has hinted that Santa Cruz may be a site for part of Olympic Surfing competition if the 1976 games are awarded to Los Angeles. Scott notes that surfers, with the aid of air travel, could surf the usually good autumn swells at Malibu, San Onofre, Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz.

The women’s competition will be spiced with Penny Whiting of New Zealand matching her skills with World Champion Margo Godfrey of Santa Barbara.

There will be a charge for parking on West Cliff Drive while the contest is on and there will be refreshments available at the contest. The refreshment stand is operated by the Steamer Lane Surf Club.

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"Santa Cruz Pro-Am," by Corky Carroll, Surfing magazine, May 1969

Two days before the Pro-Am in Santa Cruz, I wasn’t going. I had just returned from the World Contest in Puerto Rico and the very last thing that I wanted to do was enter another contest. The contest was going to be held at Steamer Lane, which is mostly a right slide, and after the Puerto Rico thing I was sick of going backside. When they hold all the important contests in right slides, being a goofyfoot is really a hang-up.

So I was all set to stay home and have a good Thanksgiving dinner with the family and then maybe split to go skiing for a couple of weeks before leaving for the Islands. But then Mark Martinson rang me up and said that he, Keith Paull and Russell Hughes were going north, and it was going to be a lot of laughs, and I should come along. Well, I thought, it would be fun to go along for the ride and I could use the $400 prize money.

So it was off to Santa Cruz and cold water.

When we arrived, things started to brighten up. Good Doctor Scott had a hotel room for us, the sun was shining, the wind was offshore, and there were good six-foot waves. I had a new board I wanted to try, so we all went to Steamer Lane to go surfing.

On the very first wave, my fin caught on a piece of kelp and I went into the drink. The “Santa Cruz cold water blues” got me. Wow, was it freezing. I caught about four more waves after that and went in. I was jazzed about the new board, but the water was just too cold to even believe—so I stayed on the cliff and watched everyone else. It looked like a World Contest sequel, with Doyle, Purpus, Russell Hughes, Nuuhiwa, Keith Paull, Margo, Joyce, Sharron Weber, Gail Couper, Fain and others. If the surf held up it looked to be an interesting contest.

That night we ran into Greg MacGillivray and Rich Harbour, who took us to a great “all you can eat for $1.50” place. All was going well until Zoocoff [Terry Lucoff] arrived with his whole team. It would take too long to try to tell you who Zoocoff is so I will just say that he runs a surfboard shop and has a nickname that anyone in Haight-Asbury would be proud to wear. Anyway, here is Zookie with his band of gremlins and they have strange looks in their eyes and are laughing and then they challenge us to a food fight. Mark and I would have easily gotten right into it, except we didn’t want to set a bad example in front of the Australians. So we got out of there as fast as we could and went back to the hotel.

The next morning it was still sunny and the surf was good. The prelims were sort of dull because no one wanted to take the chance of losing his board in the cold water. Doyle and Martinson stood out, along with Jay Riddle and George Szigeti. The Australians lost their heats and said that American contests are a joke. It seemed a poor way to try and cover a bad showing. But that’s surf-biz.

The next day was Saturday and the surf had picked up a bit and the shape was even better. The semifinals were more exciting because everyone was starting to loosen up.

The best thing that happened to me all week was when I ran into Jack O’Neill and he gave me one of his new full wetsuits, legs and all. From then on I was warm and happy. Heat winners for the semis were: Doyle, Dale Dobson, Cheer Critchlow and myself. The semi-main, with some of the best surfing of the contest, turned into a duel between Martinson and Szigeti. George won it and moved to the finals with the rest of us.

That night we went to see a great Clint Eastwood movie, and during the film I started to plan my strategy for the finals. I would be just like Clint—I’d ride in, shoot a few, then split with the money. I got to try out my plan later that night by playing pool against Mark. He slaughtered me.

The next morning the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees but the surf was still up. Santa Cruz is amazing for surf—it just seems to never go down.

The women’s final hit the water first. It was going to be interesting to see how the girls would do in their first contest for money. Margo Godfrey had won almost every recent contest, including the world championships just two weeks before. But Joyce Hoffman is a seasoned pro, and here at Steamer Lane experience was going to be a key factor. So it came as no surprise when Joyce was awarded the first-prize check over Margo.

Now it was time for the men's final—so out we went. The waves were six feet; good right slides with shorter lefts. Mike Doyle and Cheer Critchlow moved over toward the point and were taking advantage of the rights. Szigeti sat closer in and got some really hot inside walls. Dale Dobson took a chance with the lefts, while I stayed outside to wait for the sets. Dale and I ended up in line for most of the better waves—he was taking the lefts while I grabbed rights. Being goofyfoot I really wasn’t too stoked about having to go backside, but the best waves were right so I took the chance. Dale got one good tubing left but didn’t seem to have much to go with it. Since I picked up most of the bigger waves so I figured that I had a good chance of winning.

Just before the gun went off to end the heat, I caught a set wave that turned out to be my best ride. When the scoring is based upon five rides, consistency is important—so I guess that was the story at Santa Cruz. Critchlow hadn’t caught any good waves, so he came out fifth. Doyle surfed great but also didn’t have the waves. Szigeti’s hot inside tubes earned him third but weren’t big enough to get him higher.

Now the thing was boiled down to Dale and me—just like last year. Last year I won going right so this year I played the same game. It paid off because I went home $400 richer.

So I guess I'm glad NOW that I went, but I'm still unbelievably sick of surfing contests and there are still Duke and Makaha left to go this year—and both of them are right-slide contests. Believe me, it's a bummer to have the backside blues, but $400 helps ease the pain.