Joe Surf: Conlogue carries O.C. hopes for world title

Any UFC fans out there?

If you are, you know what happened last weekend when Holly Holm beat the “unbeatable” Ronda Rousey for the women’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight title. (Personally, I thought Rousey was overrated and overhyped and wasn’t surprised when a former world boxing champ like Holm picked her apart.)

By now you are wondering what the UFC has to do with surfing. Well, it’s more about what Holm has in common with Courtney Conlogue.

Conlogue and the rest of the women on the World Surf League’s World Championship Tour are scheduled to get in the water Saturday for the start of the Target Maui Pro at Honolua Bay in Hawaii. It is the 10th and final contest of the tour and will crown a world champion.

Conlogue is currently No. 2 in the rankings and will try to pull off an upset of No. 1 Carissa Moore, a two-time world champion. It’s not so much that Conlogue is a big underdog to Hawaii’s Moore, but rather that it’s been a very long time since an Orange County woman won a world surfing title.

Conlogue, who was born in and still lives in Santa Ana, will try to join Joyce Hoffman as the only Orange County women with that distinction. Hoffman won two titles, in 1965 and ‘66, a notable accomplishment for sure, but long before professional women’s surfing had grown to what it is today.

Hoffman is regarded as a pioneer of women’s surfing. Besides the world titles, she won four U.S. championships and in 1968 became the first woman to surf the Banzai Pipeline on the north shore of Oahu. She also is the only surfer to be named the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year (1965).

Conlogue, 23, will have her work cut out to join Hoffman on the exclusive list of world champs, but don’t count her out. Sure, Moore is the Target Maui Pro’s defending champion, but Conlogue has had success on the same wave.

As a teenager, she had a perfect score there. She also had one of the best waves of the year there in last year’s Maui Target Pro with a 9.57.

The Round 1 matchups have been announced for the contest. In a three-person heat, Conlogue will go against Hawaii’s Coco Ho and Australia’s Laura Enever. Moore will face current world champ Stephanie Gilmore of Australia and an unidentified wild-card entry. Gilmore has been out most of the season with a leg injury.

Moore and Conlogue have so dominated the tour this season that they combined for six titles in the nine contests so far. Moore won two contests in Australia and one at Lower Trestles near San Clemente. Conlogue won one in Australia, one in Brazil and one in Portugal, showing an ability to adapt and do well on different waves.

They matched up head to head in a final heat only once this season, with Conlogue getting the better of Moore in the Margaret River Pro in Australia in April. Conlogue posted scoring waves of 8.43 and 8.50, compared with Moore’s 8.50 and 4.63, to win, 16.93 to 13.13.

Prediction? Courtney wins by knockout.

JOE HAAKENSON is a Huntington Beach-based sports writer and editor. He may be reached at joe@juvecreative.com.