Photo: Rip Curl Cup Padang Padang
Nobody roasts shot callers quite like the average surf fan with a social media handle. That swell didn’t live up to the hype? Better rage at Surfline. A Championship Tour contest ran during a 10-day window that didn’t finish off with perfect winds and 12-foot barrels? What a bunch of losers.
The powers that be running the Rip Curl Cup Padang Padang know this dialogue. They know that teasing a potential green light for one of the best one-off contests for tubehounds might backfire, especially when that contest is designed to be held in supreme Padang Padang conditions. Organizers knew over the weekend there was a chance they could get one of those days, and so they sent out the bat signal to all their invitees: be ready to run on Tuesday morning. The press release went out Monday. The Rip Curl Cup Padang Padang was on high alert for Tuesday morning.
Now, if you’re going to go through all that trouble — giving competitors notice to get to Bali and letting the world know you’re expecting to give the call — you’re confident in your forecast. Things didn’t line up quite right though, and when Tuesday morning rolled around, that green light was no light at all. That doesn’t mean Padang Padang wasn’t firing Tuesday afternoon though, because it absolutely was, and for about three hours the swell, the tide, and the wind all aligned for what could have made a banger of a comp.
“We already know what you’re going to say… why the f@$k didn’t those fools run the main event,” Rip Curl said tongue-in-cheek. “And judging from this clip, it does appear that we may have made the wrong call.”
Plot twist: the Rip Curl Cup Padang Padang is a one-day event and they need the entire day for a proper contest. That three-hour window was great, but the format requires six hours to complete. It wasn’t the “worst call ever.” They just know what the trolls were ready to hammer into the comments sections.
“We didn’t have enough size or energy to carry through the high tide and give everyone a fair enough go,” organizers wrote. So that three-hour window of perfection is on display here as a warm-up session of the highest order. Suffice it to say, the invitees are not bummed they were gifted three hours of a cleared lineup in peak conditions. Next up, organizers are eyeing another swell on the way and a possible green light on Thursday, August 20.
