You may not believe this, but I used to surf better than Rob Machado. (Is it significant that he was 6 at the time?) I have something else over him — I knew his name before he did.
The year was 1973, and I was renting a flat in the Sydney, Australia, suburb of Curl Curl from Machado’s parents, Jim and his pregnant wife, Chris. I arrived to pay my 10-dollar a week rent when Chris mentioned they would name the kid Robert if it was a boy.
I didn’t see the family again until they returned to the States, and Rob was 10 years old. He was tiny, crossing Coast Highway with his tiny Sauritch board that had the nickname “Mouse” airbrushed onto it. After descending the stairs, he walked to the frothy beach break and surfed like most kids of that era, bouncing his board to the beach while holding his hands like his hero, Tom Curren.
He must have been 14 by the time I faced him in a heat at a little reef his uncle had named for himself. It was then that he brutally dashed my hopes of a pro career by taking first while I was eliminated after a fourth-place finish.
By age 17, Machado was no longer Mouse. One surf contest announcer called him “Rob Mob,” I guess because it rhymed. He had not only shaken the name but the nasty habit of bouncing his board in favor of crisp under-the-lip carves done in a style not seen since Gerry Lopez retired from the Pipeline.
I was seated on the beach at Seaside Reef as Machado and the star rising from the East, Kelly Slater, traded 4-foot set waves. Slater was dynamic, and fast, performing a move I had never seen, the “tail slide.” Nobody on hand had ever witnessed anyone so fast, agile, dynamic. This was the future of surfing, a phenom that even an aging Tom Curren would not be able to keep pace with.
Just as I was contemplating Slater’s quantum leaps, Machado drifted into a wave from behind the peak. He didn’t jump to his feet, he waited, seemingly too long as the wave threatened to break and end his ride. The transition from belly to feet was done with the economy and grace of a pelican gliding over a cushion of air.
A slight weight shift put him deep into the now-overhead wave. This was followed by a turn that generated just the right amount of speed, just enough to put him beneath and subsequently inside the wave for a second. Exiting the little barrel, the wave lined up and began to close out. Nice ride I thought.
But he wasn’t finished. Lifting his board over the whitewater, he was soon flying above the section. That 20-foot floater put him onto the green again, and he was soon throwing razor-sharp, laser-fast turns and cutbacks all the way to the sand. By then, Slater was back in the catbird seat, displaying his own brand of 21st-century aqua magic.
Had it been a heat and I were judging, I would have given the nod the Machado that day. Of course, this is his spot, and he is a goofy-foot, with the advantage of facing the waves there, which break predominately left.
Machado’s highest finish on the World Tour was second. In mine and other more educated opinions, he could have won at least two World Titles. Slater was one factor in his way. The other was that he lacked the killer instinct required to crush his competitors.
Rob Machado was simply too nice a guy to thrash his opponents. I only wish he had that attitude when he shattered my competitive dreams years ago.
