Five (or more) To Watch At The Quiksilver Australian Pro

The 2007 Foster’s ASP World Tour starts on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia on February 24. Rested and relaxed and ready to rumble, the world’s best surfers will meet in swift collision along one of the surfing world’s meccas, a stretch of southern Queensland coast that offers everything from quality slop to ethereal, 15-second tuberides.

We’ll hope for the latter case for a big start to the 2007 season, but regardless of conditions, these are the surfers to watch.

Dean Morrison/Mick Fanning/Joel Parkinson

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Gold Coast got one of this epic cyclone swells and Superbank lined up to heaven and the Cooly Kids could get out there and give it heaps? Dean Morrison, Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson are the Coolangatta kids, three surfers from the same area and the same era whose talent was nurtured and hammered and refined by the variety of surf and intense competition of the Gold Coast. Deano, Micko and Parko got a complete education along the Gold Coast, from the shifting, weak peaks of Duranbah, to the mind-bending, ever-lasting barrels that were created by a sand-dredging project in 2001. If Kirra Point “looks like Kirra” for this event, look for the Cooly Kids to win it blindfolded, with one-hand tied behind their back. 

Andy Irons

Like Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, AI is in it to win it this year. The proud Kauai Boy had a misfortune-strewn 2006 season that was kind of a drag until the last 1:19 of the season, when he snagged a perfect Backdoor wave from under Kelly Slater’s nose and won the Pipe Masters. Which is all well and good, but Andy has his eye on the World Title. He spent the break mostly surfing at home on the North Shore of Kauai – because where else is better – and he is now a year older, a year more mature, a year more experienced and wise, and a cool head is all he needs to propel those magic legs. Whatever the Gold Coast throws, Andy is ready, but it would really be something to see AI go off in perfect barrels.

Kelly Slater

Always one to watch. Kelly is fun to watch because he carries around that nuclear talent and he never knows when it’s going to go off. For the start of the 2005 season, Kelly lost on the Gold Coast to Chris Ward, and when he lost again at the next event, that lit a fuse ambition that lead to his seventh World Title. For 2006 Slater started the season seeing how he would go – seeing if The Force was still with him. It was, and he beat Taj Burrow in small waves at Duranbah. But a two-foot final is like having a go cart race at The Brickhouse. Wouldn’t it be swell if Queensland got a swell, and Kelly got to show his amazing stuff in six-foot barrels, against the Cooly Kids and everyone else? Cross your fingers. Say your prayers. Pray for surf.

Luke Munro

Local kid from Currumbin, he just barely squeaked into the Foster’s ASP World Tour in the 45th position, does not want to go back to the WQS and so he is going to be looking for results, fast. The Goldie is Munro’s home turf, he knows it like a salmon known its home creek and he is going to be amped by friends and neighbors and relatives pumping him from the rocks. Munro has had a nasty habit of surfing against Andy Irons in the Third Round the last two years, as a wildcard. But now he is a full-fledged WCT pro, and every result matters.