MARGARET RIVER, Western Australia — Floridian surfer and former Association of Surfing Professionals World No. 4 Damien Hobgood claimed his sixth major ASP event victory by taking out the Telstra Drug Aware Pro, Saturday at Margaret River in West Australia.
MARGARET RIVER, Western Australia — Floridian surfer and former Association of Surfing Professionals World No. 4 Damien Hobgood claimed his sixth major ASP event victory by taking out the Telstra Drug Aware Pro, Saturday at Margaret River in West Australia.
His victory in the final was over local Yadin Nicol.
“I’ve been coming to Margaret River since I was 13 years old,” Hobgood said on the podium. “It’s right up there with home and the North Shore for my favourite places. Thank you to the West Australian government, it’s so awesome that you get behind surfing like this. Back home surfing is so small.”
Hobgood cruised to the title by a score of 12.83 to 6.94.
“It wasn’t really much of a final,” he said. “I’m sure Yadin is bummed, it would have been great to battle it out. I saw that it was getting smaller and just wanted to go out and get some scores under my belt. I stuck to my game plan and it worked.”
Hobgood earned $40,000 and 6,500 valuable ratings points for his win, which moved him to 10th position on the ASP World Rankings.
Following a hectic week that saw the swell size peak at five meters, the greatest challenge for competitors on the final day was to find any rides at all. In the 30-minute decider, Hobgood got the jump on the local crowd favorite by clinching two early scoring waves.
Nicol, surfing his maiden final, was forced to play catch up, but with Mother Nature calling the shots, he was never in the hunt.
“What can you do?” he said. “If the waves don’t come to you, you can’t be too bummed. Damo got busy at the start and then it was pretty much over from there. I was looking at the waves he was going for thinking, ‘Are they even waves?’ So I waited and nothing bigger came.”
The runner-up finish is a career-best result for the 26-year-old, who has rocketed up 30 places on the ASP world ratings ladder, now sitting just outside the all-important mid year top-32 cut-off.
Finishing in equal third was Hawai‘i’s Granger Larsen, along with Brazil’s Willian Cardoso.
Cardoso’s final hopes were dashed in the early moments of his semifinal when he suffered an interference penalty versus Nicol. With one of his two scoring waves halved, Cardoso was never a threat to the Australian and was forced to settle for equal third place.
Surfing legend and 10-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater made his first competitive appearance at Margaret River in 18 years, but was bundled out Friday in equal 13th place by New Zealand rookie Billy Stairmand.
The next event on the second tier ASP Men’s Prime event calendar is the Nike Lowers Pro, to be held at Trestles in California beginning May 3.
The sport’s biggest names will compete at event No. 2 on the ASP World Title Tour, The Rip Curl Pro, which begins at Bells Beach, Victoria in a little more than a week’s time (April 19 to 30).
Conlogue gives USA clean sweep
MARGARET RIVER, Western Australia — A USA double win at Margaret River took place when Orange County’s Courtney Conlogue won the Association of Surfing Professionals 6-Star rated Women’s Telstra Drug Aware Pro, following up on Damien Hobgood’s win in the men’s event.
Conlogue defeated fellow USA surfer Sage Erickson in a see-sawing duel that saw Conlogue seal the final late with a strong 5.7 ride to go with her early seven-pointer, taking the final with 12.70 to Erickson’s 10.93.
“It’s been fantastic here and I’m so stoked to win and especially share the winner’s podium with Damien Hobgood — really special day for me,” said Conlogue, who won $15,000 in prize money.
“The next month is so busy for me,” she said. “I head to Bells Beach straight away, then onto New Zealand, Sydney and Brazil and I’m confident right now, but really the next event I start from ground zero with Stephanie Gilmore and all the world’s best there. I’ve never surfed Bells before so I’m heading there straight away to work it out, but after today I’ll go with confidence.”
Erickson was also thrilled with her second-place finish.
“I started slow last year and finished well and I came here aiming to get a good result that I can build my season around and that’s how it panned out,” she said. “I love the place, such a cool event for the girls and how can I not be happy?”
Earlier in the day, in the diminishing but clean small waves, Conlogue eliminated Australia’s Rebecca Woods in her semifinal, while Erickson disposed of local favorite Felicity Palmateer. The Australian pair finished in equal third place.
