Hobgood twins 1st & 2nd at Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro

Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro & Gallaz Surf Jam

ASP 4 Star WQS Mens event #1/2006
ASP 4 Star WQS Womens event #1/2006
Sebastian Inlet, Florida, USA
5 - 12 January 2005

Heatdraw/Results (xls) Men
Florida Today Photo/Video gallery
Scores/Results

Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro completes fifth round

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 12 January, 2006 : - - The sceond annual Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro ASP 4 Star WQS Mens event drew to a close today with the Hobgood twin brothers taking first and second places. Damien Hobgood took the winners place with a total score of 16.16 followed by CJ Hobgood in 2nd with 14.00 points and who ultimately needed a 8.67 wave score to take first place. Both surfers are sponsored by Globe, the event sponsor. Asher Nolan came in 3rd with 9.97 points and Aaron Cormican took 4th place with 9.60 points.

The finals for the second Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro surfing contest lined up just the way contest organizers hoped it would. Twin brothers C.J. and Damien Hobgood, the top seeds in the event from Satellite Beach, went head-to-head, along with Asher Nolan and Aaron Cormican. C.J. led early, posting a 7.50 on his third wave to go along with a 6.5. But Damien scored a 7.33 and later in the heat scored an 8.83 to clinch the victory.

Actually, it was a great ending for Damien Hobgood who, like a cat, used up two of his lives earlier in the day and then scratched and clawed his way past twin brother C.J. to win the second annual $75,000 Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro. More than 1,200 spectators lined the beach and pier Thursday afternoon to watch two of the sport's greatest surfers, who grew up in Satellite Beach, perform blow-by-blow, jaw-dropping aerials and 360s.

"I was stoked to be battling my brother," said Damien, 26, the top seed who won the heat 16.16-14.00 to collect the $10,000 top prize. "We were messing with each other out there, but he got me fired up the way he was surfing. "I knew what I needed to do." It was the first World Qualifying Series victory for Damien, who last season finished a career-best fourth on the elite 46-man World Championship Tour.

It also was the first time Damien had beaten his brother, the 2001 world champion, in a pro heat. They once reached the finals of a WQS event in France, where C.J. placed third and Damien was fourth. In their only meeting on the WCT circuit, in Japan, "C.J. smoked me," Damien said. "He's going to rub this one in, which stinks," said C.J., who won $5,000. "So I've got to put up with him for a while."

Damien Hobgood : photo Craig Rubadoux/Florida Today /Globe SBI Pro

Damien took charge in the final heat with a 7.33 on his third wave, smashing the lip three times following a 4.67 score as C.J. waited patiently until posting a 6.50 score on his first ride. Moments later, C.J. took the lead, finishing off a long right with a big backside air that scored 7.50. Damien quickly answered at the 11-minute mark, going high into the air and coming down with an inverted, upside-down reverse that the judges rewarded with an 8.83.

C.J.'s final chance came in the closing minutes. He nearly pulled off a high 360-degree switch and turn, but he slid off his board at the last second close to shore. C.J., who finished 10th on the WCT last year, had won all three of his heats earlier in the day, while his brother twice had to rally just to survive.

"It's kind of crazy," C.J. said. "It's just a matter of peaking at the right time. You've got to know when to come out with your guns a-blazing. I just came out on the short end."

Damien, meanwhile, rallied in his first heat of the day, scoring a 6.67 on a big reverse with two minutes remaining to overtake Nolan and dig his way out of a third-place hole, knocking out California's Nathaniel Curran. "That wasn't pretty," Damien said. "It's definitely not the way you want your heat to go." "I should have blocked him," Curran said. "I didn't think that wave was going to be that good."

In the quarterfinals, probably the most dramatic heat of the entire week-long event, Hawaii's Roy Powers, one of the newest WCT qualifiers, took a big lead with a sweeping right near the pier that scored 8.83. Australian Josh Kerr, the world's reigning aerial surfing champion, stuck a big-air reversal for a 6.60 that appeared to have Damien on the ropes. But with less than a minute left, and needing a 5.94, Damien pulled off two big, spraying turns that scored 8.17 and brought everyone to their feet.

But the heat wasn't over yet.

As Damien walked toward the shoreline with his board in tow, he looked back over his shoulder only to see Kerr take off in the final 20 seconds and land an incredible, rail-grabbing 360-degree spin, good for an 8.67 score. "I was thinking all along on that last ride, 'Should I do an air instead of a second turn?' and then when I looked around and saw Josh pull that off, I was hoping I didn't 'safety' it," Damien said.

What they didn't know was that Powers' second-best score was just 4.33, and both overtook him. Kerr won that heat (15.27) over Damien (14.34) and Powers (13.16). "Man, I was fighting and scratching my way out of a lot of holes today," Damien said. "But that happens a lot in contests. There's one point where if you can escape a little trap, it gives you a lot of momentum."

Nolan had beaten Damien in the semifinals, but he couldn't beat the brothers when it counted. "I used to beat them a lot down here," laughed Nolan, the 1995 and 1997 Eastern Surfing Association's East Coast champion who finished sixth on the North America circuit last year. "I was stoked to be surfing with them again."

Results of the Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro

Final

1, Damien Hobgood USA
2, Hobgood USA
3, Asher Nolan USA
4, Aaron Cormican USA

Semi-final # 1

1, Asher Nolan USA
2, Damien Hobgood USA
3, Josh Kerr AUS
4, Abdel El Harim MAR

Semi-final # 2

1, CJ Hobgood USA
2, Aaron Cormican USA
3, Kyle Garson USA
4, Ben Bourgeois USA

Check out the Heatdraw/Results (xls) Scores/Results

For information about the Globe Sebastian Inlet Pro visit www.globesipro.com.