conner Coffin, the Championship Tour rookie from Santa Barbara is still going strong in Portugal, and he is fighting for his pro career survival. He needs a solid result there to secure his spot on the CT for 2017, because he doesn't have a backup plan on the Qualifying Series.
At 5’9 and 23 years old, conner has a long career ahead of him, and his surfing will survive this year no matter what, but it would be good to get a decent score, chuck away one of this 25th placings (he has a few) and look strong going into Hawaii.
conner already has a reputation for being intelligent, and enquiring. It came out during the JBay Open this year when he was defeated by Adam Melling in the second round and he wasn’t that happy about it. “I wasn’t mad at them, like ‘that’s the wrong result,’ I just wanted to understand why.” He took the time to speak to the judges, get their points of view and analyze them, and afterwards he articulated these thought effectively in a post-heat interview, showing intelligence and consideration in his answers, resulting in acknowledgement from Kelly. It’s good to have another thinking man on the tour.
Looking on, it was a total rookie mistake. He had a good score in the bank, and he came screaming down the line on another excellent wave. He hit it about five times, and instead of finishing it off, he kicked out to paddle battle Adam to get priority. He didn't need to; he needed to finish off that wave, and that rookie mistake cost him the heat.
Much like his interference at thundering Cloudbreak for the Fiji Pro against Wiggolly Dantas. The Brazilian goofy-footer had priority, and conner took off on a bomb on the inside. He tried to kick out when Wiggolly went, but in the process Wiggolly was knocked by the wave and got pitched, and the result was an interference against Coffin. A long way to travel for an interference. Those two mistakes were both vital errors on his rookie year. It had nothing to do with luck. The man simply made some mistakes.
The man rips though. He’s small, he has a low center of gravity, and he likes to smack lips and power through his carves. He has been on fire in Portugal, going for broke in the smaller waves of Supertubos, and looking at home around the corner in the big and open lefts of Pico Do Fabril. He has been going square off the bottom and going big on the set waves, and has confidence and skills on his step-up in the challenging conditions. Sitting at 24th on the Championship Tour Jeep Leaderboard, a good result here will really help him along his way to requalification, and the popular young surfer is looking like he is going to do it.
There are a few things that he will have to contend with though. It looks like the event might move back to Supertubos due to surge in swell, and he will need to readjust to the short, sharp and barreling kind of waves that will be on offer. He’s done that fine so far, so he should be good on that.
Then he will have to contend with Jeremy Flores, who can only be described as fired-up. Jeremy has been on a tear at this event, a rampage, and it seems he has one massive point to prove after a lackluster year on the Championship Tour. Jeremy has already requalified through the Qualifying Series so he has the luxury of not having to fight to the bitter end at this event, although paradoxically that is exactly what he is doing. He has already removed Matt Wilkinson from the event along with Gabriel Medina, taking both surfers out of the World Title race. conner has plenty of Big Match Temperament in him however, after calmly eliminating defending champion Filipe Toledo from the event in round three.
conner definitely has the skills and he has the game plan, he just cannot afford to make any more rookie mistakes.
He will meet Jeremy Flores in heat three of round five. Live webcast found here
