Larry Blair won the 1978 Coke contest in Sydney, which earned him an invite to the Pipeline Masters later that year. That's how it worked back then. Getting into the Masters was half rating's points, half made-up backroom voodoo by contest promoters. It was Blair's first Masters. Pipe was eight-foot and perfect in the early rounds, windy and gnarly for the later heats. Lopez and Russell represented the old guard in the six-man final, along with up-and-comers Hans Hedemann, Dane Kealoha and Joey Buran. Blair snuck through in a few heats, joined the others in the final, and played a tactically perfect game to take the event. First Aussie ever to win the Masters. Youngest, too. Still is the youngest, in fact; Blair was barely 20 when he won.

 wasn't impressed. Blair, the magazine wrote, won "by not taking off in front of anybody, and not getting killed." Not true. The cupid-faced goofyfooter from Coogee had the most advanced board (a nicely-rockered McCoy pintail), and a loose, limber approach to setting up the barrel. Weaved his way down the face to let the wave stack up ahead of him. Shaun Tomson did it too, except backside. Nobody else. Lopez and the rest of the Lightning Bolt heavies were still pretty much straight-lining it.

Blair returned in 1979, even stronger, booked himself into another stacked final (Tomson, Kealoha, Richards, Carroll, Bertlemann), and again took the prize. Emphatically. Got blown out of a sparkling double-overheard tube, arms raised, with less than three minutes left, to overtake Kealoha. 

 mag at that point named Blair "the new King of Pipeline."

Then Blair shot himself in the foot. Did an interview right after the contest and claimed he was aiming for five Masters wins. Fallout was still raining down on the North Shore from the whole aggro-Aussie "Bustin' Down the Down" episode, and now here was Blair, the tone-deaf dummy, stating in no uncertain terms that he was ready to outdo Lopez and Russell and every other Pipeline ace. Five wins! Right there, in print!

Blair shows up in Hawaii a few weeks early to get ready for the 1980 Masters. Takes a lot of waves. More than his share. Somehow doesn't get punched out. But in the Masters repercharge heat—the heat right before the finals—the other competitors have a tacit understanding that Blair's run is over. Future Pipe Masters winner Joey Buran was in the heat. "There were five minutes left," Buran later recalled, "and I'm not kidding, everyone circled him. Just circled him, looked at him and it was just, you know, 'No 

And that was it. Stopped cold. Blair returned to Hawaii the next year, and the year after, but never even got close. Finished 21st at Pipe in '81, 17th in '82. The two Masters wins made and broke his surfing career at the same time. Years later, Blair said as much. "After that [the second win], it became difficult for me in Hawaii, with people being aggressive in the water, verbally aggressive. And eventually I decided to quit competing."

One last little indignity. The Pipeline Masters trophy that Blair posed with in '78 and '79 wasn't his to keep. It was a "perpetual" trophy, meaning they took it away after the post-comp photo shoot, stuck it in a box, and handed it over for an hour or so to the next year's winner. Around 2005, Blair got in touch with a Triple Crown organizer to see if he could get a memento of some kind for his two wins. Request denied. It's a two-for-one indignity, actually. Blair asking for a trophy. The Triple Crown turning him down.

But credit where it's due. The Coogee kid, on the right day, with a lot of pressure and cameras pointed his way, and a bit of money on the line, out-surfed everybody at Pipeline.

LARRY BLAIR: FORGOTTEN MASTER

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