'The Greatest of Days': Joey Buran wins the 1984 Pipeline Masters

It only took a year for the face and presence of the World Tour to look and feel completely different, so great was the transformation brought on by ASP World Tour director Ian Cairns and this new generation of hungry, talented, and competition-ready surfers.

It was a swift and decisive changing of the guard.

Thankfully, I was young enough, hungry enough and ranked highly enough to not get swept aside like so many of my elder IPS peers.

They either didn't like the new format, all of the additional events, the presence of more beach breaks, loss of the Hawaiian events... or simply aged out. It was out with the old and in with the new!

The new guard was led by Martin Potter, Tom Curren, Mark Occhilupo, Derek Ho, Barton Lynch and Damien Hardman.

They were all young and extremely talented, and they were quickly finding their traction into the World Tour Top 10.

All of these surfers would eventually become future world champions. So I sensed, going into 1984, what my future held.

I needed to pray that Ian and Fred would find common ground so the Top 16 could surf the Hawaiian events, and I needed to win the Pipeline Masters very soon.

Led by the two Toms, Curren and Carroll, the young bucks were rising fast, and in California, they had one target in mind above all others - me.

David Barr, now a Top 30 surfer as well, and I were the remaining warriors of the IPS in the state, now seen as salty veterans playing a young man's game.

I was determined to stay in the World Tour Top 10 and hold these guys off.

By the summer, my feelings changed. Drastically. I had matured as a person and grown in my ability to understand my world.

My assessment and conclusions of what my pro surfing future looked like were humbling - and, as history proved, accurate.

I knew my days were numbered.

Some of these well-schooled NSSA graduates and teenage overseas phenoms were already better than me, and some would soon surpass me.

More to the point, after my fantastic season of the year before, I found my surfing ability leveling off again.

For the first time since my career began, I found myself losing interest in remaining on tour.

It's like it all hit at once.

I was tired of nonstop travel across six continents for seven years, accompanied by the stress of always being on the edge of a career disaster, which ages both your body and soul very quickly.

I'd consolidated my sponsorships, dropping Hang Ten and riding exclusively for Mike Baron Surfboards and Body Glove.

Without consciously intending to do so, I had begun to transition toward a growing interest in surf event promotion and organization.

Still, though, I wanted to go out in the same flamethrowing way I leaped into pro surfing: repeat the Top 10, maybe remind Curren the old guy could fend him off once more in the ratings, and take a few more cracks at my ultimate career goal of winning the Pipeline Masters.

Wouldn't that be a great way to call it a day?

The Exit Strategy

I was still the California Kid.

Even though Tom Curren was now clearly recognized as the best surfer in California, I was okay admitting to myself Tom now prevailed.

The tour rolled through Europe and the East Coast as summer moved into fall.

At the end of September, for the first time in my career, the World Tour camped out in my backyard: Oceanside's North Jetty, one of my favorite spots for free surfing for years.

It was also the site of my win in the infamous California Pro, after which the promoter split all of our prize money.

How much the sport had grown since then.

Stubbies saw the writing on the sponsorship wall - "Go big or go home" - and discontinued its important regional surf trials series.

In a hurried decision, they morphed the trials into an ASP World Tour event in Oceanside, to be held three weeks after the OP Pro.

I don't know how, but in eight weeks' time, Carlsbad local Jim Watson, Oceanside board shaper Gary Linden, local photographer and resident Offshore Surf Shop big brother Jerry Calkins, Stubbies' Mike and Greg Bechelli, the City of Oceanside, and my future memoir editor breathed this tournament into being.

"Jimmy and I put in 18-hour days, then drove up to the North Jetty at midnight every night, ate the burritos we bought at a Mexican fast-food place, and visioned both the next day's workload and the tournament as a whole," my editor remembers.

"We wanted the world to see Oceanside, the World Tour surfers to see our focus was purely on them and their needs... and the locals to feel honored."

I knew all these guys well. They delivered.

What an incredible feeling to come home as a top-ranked ASP surfer and to do so at a World Tour event.

At one of my home breaks.

Internationally, despite my success at the Tropix Grand Prix on the East Coast, I endured loss after loss to some of the younger surfers.

It wore down my resolve. I began to consider my tour exit strategy.

On paper, a win in Oceanside would be an awesome conclusion to my career in California, and then, if I could triumph at Pipeline, I'd raise my arms after the ultimate storybook ending.

At the Stubbies Pro, part one didn't quite work out.

I surfed quite well, but for the third event in a row, I was eliminated by the amazing 18-year-old Australian youngster, Mark Occhilupo.

There would be no storybook ending for me in Oceanside.

Following the Stubbies Pro, I made the decision publicly: I announced my official upcoming retirement from pro surfing.

I would step aside two months after the next event, the 1984 Off Shore Pipeline Masters.

If the ASP chose to continue its Top 16 boycott of the Hawaiian Triple Crown, as the three events were now called, I wouldn't be governed by my spot in the ratings anymore.

I was free to surf Pipeline.

Further, I told the media I would also begin a whole new career as a new tour event director, establishing and running the Professional Surfing Association of America (PSAA).

I had blazed a trail on the World Tour for this next generation of American rippers, and now I was going to create an American surf tour on which they could hone their skills and eventually turn the tide on Australian World Tour dominance.

I figured that as a longtime pro surfer who studied how the contests came together, knew the industry a bit, knew how to obtain sponsors, and certainly understood promotion and how to work with the media, I could follow a tried-and-true course walked by Fred Hemmings, Randy Rarick, and Ian Cairns and switch from competing to running a pro tour.

Dream vs. Reality: A Surfer on Mission Pipeline Masters

There was only one thing left for me to do: win the 1984 Pipeline Masters, plain and simple.

I had bet my entire surfing career legacy on winning the Pipeline Masters, and now I had essentially given myself one last chance to do it.

Yep, that's me, and by plopping that expectation onto my plate, I did not sleep particularly well in November and December of that year.

Planning out the PSAA Tour kept me busy and, thankfully, a bit distracted.

It also gave me cause for much stress over an unknown future, which I feared might impact my chances to win Pipe. Plus, due to the boycott, I was unable to surf in the 1983 Pipeline Masters after losing in the first round of the 1982 Pipe Masters and my disastrous loss in treacherous conditions in the 1981 semifinals.

I hadn't been to the finals in four years.

Yet, I willed myself over and over; Joey Buran, the kid from Tamarack Beach in Carlsbad, California, just had to somehow find a way, any way, in our giant universe, to move heaven and earth to fulfill my dream.

There was no other alternative. I had to win. That was that.

In early December, I left for Hawaii with my childhood dream in my heart and one chance left to get it done.

It would require marshaling all my forces, the greatest day of my life, and the cumulative effort of everything I had ever done, reflecting the very best of who I was at the age of 24.

Which brings us to December 17, 1984: "The Greatest of Days." December 17, 1984, was my absolute destiny.

In a universe with trillions of galaxies and all that makes the universe work, somehow, it had to work perfectly for me on that day.

Every movement in the entire Pacific Ocean, the upper atmosphere, the direction of the swell, the cells in my body, the neurons in my brain, the data in my subconscious, the fiberglass and foam under my feet, the rain, the rainbows, and all the elements of my universe had to align with my board, my knowledge of the wave, and my desire to win.

In some ways, it's a blur, yet in other ways, there are moments and pictures in my mind that are so clear I suppose I could never forget them.

Starting with a midnight dream the night before, a clear, a very clear, absolutely literal dream.

A lucid dream. I dreamed I won the Pipe Masters.

It was a scene I had never seen before, so it didn't come out of memory but felt more like a projection backward from the future.

The future of that very day.

Not only had it been my "dream" to win the Pipeline Masters for the 11 years since I'd proclaimed my victory-to-be to my mother, but in the early hours of December 17, I believe God intentionally showed me what part of it would look like, so I would know it was from Him when I experienced it.

When I woke up, I did not consciously know this. I was very disappointed to rub my eyes open and realize it had only been a dream.

Yet, the dream had felt so real. Never before had I ever lived a dream with such clarity and detail.

The most memorable part was paddling out while competing, looking at a giant barrel from the side view, and seeing young Hawaiian Pipeline favorite Derek Ho.

He was coming right at me, locked in the sweetest spot deep inside a tube that could easily fit a semitruck - then, at the very last second, the wave hit him on top of his head, resulting in a major wipeout and making the wave and its score inconsequential.

It was at that moment in my dream I knew that I had won.

Getting Pumped with Christian Rock Music

Contest organizers only invited 24 surfers to the event, the very best Pipeline surfers.

The event was recognized by the new ASP World Tour, which ended the boycott and allowed Top 16-ranked surfers to compete.

However, it would carry no points for the current World Tour ranking system.

In previous years, that might have upset me, but I was retiring anyway, so it meant nothing to me.

Ranked or unranked, it was the Pipeline Masters, the tournament surfers considered tougher and more prestigious than any other.

I needed to win. That was all that mattered that day! To prepare for my big day, I chose a different place to stay when I arrived in Hawaii.

First, I showed up later than normal.

Then, instead of staying in the condos at the Turtle Bay Hilton, 10 minutes northeast of Pipeline, I decided to encamp at a friend's house, even farther to the east, past Kahuku, about 20 minutes away.

So, early that morning, a few hours after the dream, I headed out to Pipeline to pursue my life dream.

There was no doubt the contest would be on that day, as we all knew the swell would arrive early that morning.

It had been a dismal December for waves, and the Pipeline Masters contest had already limped through its entire original waiting period without being held.

Even the contest directors, for years notorious for driving sponsors, media and even competitors crazy for waiting interminably for "the perfect day," were eager to run it.

This swell was their golden opportunity.

The month had been so poor that there were no guarantees they'd see another good swell again in the calendar year.

I arrived at Pipeline in predawn darkness, turned on my Walkman cassette player, and blasted a Christian rock album by the well-known band Petra.

I filled my mind with praise music (albeit rock) to start the day.

On this day of all days, I was asking God for it all! I figured it was probably good luck or something like that to listen to rock music about God that morning, and so I did.

I danced and hooted on the beach, feeling and hearing how big the surf was. It was for sure going to be big - and dangerous!

What made the waves extra dangerous? The mixture of swell directions, plain and simple. And the size.

The Pipeline breaks best on a pure, 270-degree west swell.

On a full north swell, it doesn't break properly and is rarely surfed; the wave looks like a merciless liquid guillotine.

On this day, it was what we call a combination swell, incoming waves from both directions sometimes merging offshore and then driving into the reef.

But a lot of very dangerous closeout waves sweep in from the north, and occasionally, a few perfect waves from the west.

The most essential strategy on this kind of day is to dodge the scary north swell waves that close out and swallow riders and boards like tasty meals, causing dangerous wipeouts on a coral reef five feet below.

Or less. And that reef has it all - mushroom-topped coral, jagged coral, tabletop coral, caves, fissures... a recipe for injury. Or death.

And I've seen both at Pipeline.

The second strategy involves patience... lots of patience.

Not always my strongest quality, but my years at Pipeline taught me that on this wave, in these conditions, patience was both a winning strategy and a survival tactic.

My job, and that of the other 23 stars, was to patiently wait for, recognize, and catch the relatively "smaller" and "cleaner" west swell waves.

Which brings me to a huge key to my chances at victory: I was familiar and comfortable with these conditions.

In competition surfing, wave selection is everything, as is knowledge of the local lineup.

Most locals and top pros avoid these types of days at Pipeline because of the sheer danger.

Yet for me, in my pursuit to become King of the Pipeline, I had surfed every possible day I could over the last seven seasons, including treacherous conditions, which involved swallowing fear and having faith in my ability to do it in my earlier years.

And saying a prayer or two, for sure.

Like a hitter knowing what pitch is coming, I instinctively knew which waves to avoid and which waves to catch.

That degree of experience and trust in my instinctive judgment was going to be a huge factor on this day, the decisions of knowing which board to use, where to sit, where to drop in, which waves to take - and how deeply to burrow myself inside them - and not least of all, how to wipe out without losing my board or being injured.

By 7:30 a.m., most of the competitors had arrived and were on the beach, getting ready.

Spectators began turning up as word was spreading via radio, morning TV news, weather forecasters and North Shore locals: Pipeline was big and dangerous, and the contest was on!

The morning dawned clear and sunny, but off-and-on cloud cover would persist throughout the day, and by late afternoon, significant rain squalls would arrive.

I paddled out for a warm-up surf on my mid-range board, seven-foot-three in length.

After paddling out, I realized my board was too short, and I would need to ride my bigger seven-foot-ten board.

In an unprecedented experience, I did not catch even one wave during my warm-up.

I had seen the look of the ocean in the lineup, helpful information for sure, but not catching a warm-up wave was hardly a confidence booster!

The waves were big, scary, and incredibly dangerous.

The mix of swells was still building, ensuring that the waves would continue to grow, to get bigger and meaner.

It was obvious to everyone in the water and on the beach that this day was going to be filled with historical drama.

It's On

Finally, contest director Randy Rarick fired off the air horn, getting us started.

Of the six opening-round heats in the 1984 Pipeline Masters, I drew heat five.

My first good break.

It gave me a chance to watch the heats and get a feel for what was going on in the ocean: how it was moving, how the surfers were positioning, and where the waves with the biggest barrels, longest stand-up time, and highest scoring potential were breaking.

It was terrifying! Nobody stood out in the first four heats. The tone of the morning stopped on "safety first," as if it were a radio dial stuck on a station.

The very best Pipeline surfers in the world were doing just that, surfing safely and conservatively, staying well within their perceived thresholds, never so much as edging up to them.

There were some solid rides and a few crazy wipeouts, but no injuries.

Then, it was time for heat five to paddle out.

I was grouped with the great Shaun Tomson, a former world and Pipeline Masters champion, local Pipeline standout Marvin Foster, like me, a goofy foot, and John Damm, another Pipeline local known and respected for his bravado, particularly his ability to sit and wait for the very best and biggest barrels.

His patience at the break was greater than mine, which I duly noted.

My Pipeline strategy has always been about tempo and flow. Get busy, catch waves, build confidence and rhythm with the ocean, get in the flow, and then attack the bigger "bomb" sets.

No one found anything unique or special to the strategy. But the big question was, could I execute the game plan?

Of my time spent in the water all day, ironically, I remember the first 15 minutes the most. The paddle out was much more difficult and dangerous than normal.

Timing was crucial for paddling out and when I did, there to my right was Marvin Foster.

Paddling with the urgency of a drowning man trying to find his next breath, we both timed things right and made it to the safe area of the deep-water channel, just to the right side of the thunderous take-off zone.

However, before we could even catch our breath, a gigantic set of 20-foot waves from the northwest came through, causing the huge waves to break on the outer second and third reefs of Pipeline.

A quick reference - most Pipe contests were and are held in good to great first-reef conditions.

Some are blessed with even riskier second-reef waves, but the third reef is reserved for the biggest bombs, monsters, and rogues the place can hold.

This particular second- and third-reef set created a massive wall of powerful whitewater that looked like an oncoming avalanche!

In the rarest of events, it even rolled right through the deep water of the Pipeline channel.

There was no alternative for Marvin and me but to throw our boards to the side, dive deep under the massive wall of whitewater, and hope our surf leashes wouldn't break.

Talk about a wake-up call!

For all the times we had surfed in the Pipeline lineup together, we had never experienced something like that, let alone in the Pipe Masters!

The contest I felt destined to win, that I had to win.

"I don't have time for my leash snapping and having to swim in! I don't have time for this! How could this already happen?"

Fortunately, both of our leashes held.

The giant wall of whitewater snapped me out of my preheat nerves. I was no longer nervous about the contest and what it meant to me - but was positively terrified of the waves!

As soon as all four surfers were safely in position, our heat started.

I looked around and noticed we were more spread out than we might have been on a normal 10-to-15-foot day.

The Pipeline take-off zone is normally tight and compact, with a radius of about 20 yards, but not on this day.

The surf was so big that the mixed swells created an unfamiliar and unpredictable take-off zone, spreading us out about 75 yards in different locations.

Since there was no man-on-man priority buoy in this format, the key to wave selection was to hold the inside position against the other competitors and establish the right of way.

The risk in doing so was to find ourselves too far back to drop into and then speed out of the huge tubes within the waves.

The other well-known strategy was to try and sit a little more inside and over from the deeper take-off zone and look for the shifting, cleaner inside 12-to-15-foot waves.

That was my usual Pipeline strategy as a whole, as it also was for Marvin.

True to form, Shaun and Damm opted to sit deeper and farther outside while Marvin and I took our more comfortable inside positions.

My first wave that day remains one of my most memorable.

A set wave swung toward me as if I summoned it, shifting away from Damm and Shaun.

I charged for it and pulled into a giant barrel, big enough to drive a bus in! That's not hyperbole; that's a measurement.

I got to work on my trusty seven-foot-ten single fin, a board I had ridden for a couple of previous winters and with which I was very comfortable.

I knew the nuances of the board quite well and trusted it in these big and powerful waves.

Quickly, I slotted myself inside the barrel.

I found myself so deep that I rode atop what surfers call the foam ball, a compact ball of whitewater trapped by the waterfall-thick lip spilling over my head.

My board passed the test, and my trusty single fin held on as I drove through the deep barrel, but before I could come out, the entire wave closed out and crashed on me.

The ride was spectacular, but the score was insignificant, like a deep, potential touchdown pass on the first play of the game that barely slips off the wide receiver's fingertips.

Even so, when I popped up safely out the back side of the wave, I was pumped!

My board had passed the test! And I knew how very deep I could go!

Several times throughout the day, I would stand far back in the barrel, riding on top of the foam ball.

Every time my board would provide the control and stability I needed to make it out of those giant tubes!

All the nervous energy of the last few months disappeared at that very moment.

That giant barrel reminded me of what I loved to do more than anything - catch and score big tube rides at Pipeline!

My switch was on, and it stayed on till I went to bed that night!

It is worth noting I made every other wave I caught for the rest of the day. Every one of them. I never fell or failed. I caught barrel after barrel until it became a blur.

I was always in the right spot, and, simply put, everything was going right for me!

Compared to other sports, surfing is a lot like golf. A lot can go right, but a lot can go wrong, and it often does at the Pipeline.

So, to have everything going right was an indescribable feeling! I just knew these truths were going to happen as I paddled for my next wave.

I caught some great barrels and never looked back. I don't remember anything about the other surfers. It was my day, and I was in the zone.

Shaun finished second, which set us up to advance on to separate heats later that afternoon.

I was so excited after my first-round win that I couldn't wait to get back out in the lineup and catch some more huge barrels!

The field was pared down to the final 12 surfers; the top 2 from each of the three semifinal heats would advance to an extravaganza of a final: one hour and six surfers.

The Allan Byrne Trauma

In the second round, the tone of the day had shifted. So had the weather.

The summeresque morning had ceded to a more seasonal autumn pattern, with puffy tropical white and gray clouds coming and going throughout the day, carried by the typical 15-to-20-mile-per-hour trade winds that crawl over the hills to the east and keep the waves for the most part, well groomed with their favorable side offshore direction.

I took stock of both the shifting winds and the contest, which was certainly going my way.

I was stunned as I watched many of the other competitors, the world's very best surfers, pursue the wrong waves while I instinctively caught nothing but the right waves!

It almost felt like I was cheating.

It became clear that not only did I have the best wave selection of the day, but of equal importance, I was making the most of the opportunity those waves were giving me.

My next heat was a rematch with perennial Pipeline standout Allan Byrne from New Zealand.

Back in the 1981 Pipe Masters, I suffered a horrific wipeout in the semifinals due to interference from Allan.

He blocked and then interfered with my ride after I had already established priority for the wave, which is illegal in competition surfing.

This is to be avoided at all costs because the penalty for interference is the loss of total points for one of your top-three scoring waves.

At Pipeline, an interference not only hinders the scoring potential for the primary rider but is also very dangerous for everyone involved.

In our situation, his wipeout in front of me forced me to wipe out behind him.

Although we both fell, I took the brunt of it and never fully recovered.

I fought hard to recover from the wipeout, but it was not enough to advance to the final.

For some inexplicable reason, the IPS judges never called Allan for the interference. He was able to finish ahead of me and advance to the final.

I never held it against him, as he intended no malice in that dangerous situation.

Had he intentionally tried to stuff me in the pit of the wave, he would've suffered huge grief from all the surfers, likely made worse by the fact that he was not Hawaiian.

The impact to me lasted far longer than shaking off a wipeout. From that moment, three years before, I had not advanced through a single round in the Pipeline Masters.

It threw a lot of question marks around my dream of winning the event, for sure.

Now, three years later, I watched Allan paddle out next to me for our semifinal.

I found myself fighting my emotions and the skeletons of that unforgettable event so I could focus on the task at hand.

Right next to him was my teenage nemesis, Mark Occhilupo, who had eliminated me in man-on-man events all season.

The fourth and final competitor in this semifinal heat was someone I had never previously surfed against, unheralded Brian Buckley from Laguna Beach.

Buckley was part of the "Pipeline Underground," a group of talented but lesser-known Pipeline standouts.

In reality, he wasn't just one of the underground, but considered by many to be the best Pipeline surfer in the world on a day-in, day-out basis.

Like Jon Damm in my first-round heat, Brian was fearless and liked to sit way out the back, patiently wait for, and then charge the biggest waves of the day.

Perhaps his greatest asset was his comfort level and experience in these unique and dangerous conditions.

We held that in common.

Simply put, Brian knew the Pipeline lineup as good or better than anyone in the world. On paper, this was an amazing heat and could have easily been the final. 

Unlike my first round, I started slow.

Early on, I was a little bit out of rhythm and could not seem to get the best waves. Halfway through the 30-minute heat, I found myself in last place.

Normally, I might tense up and feel the pressure of having to catch up, especially at beach break contests where conditions were small and sporadic at best.

Not at Pipeline.

One thing that makes Pipeline different from a lot of other surf spots is that you can catch a wave and be back in the main lineup within two minutes.

Every Pipeline Masters competitor knew that, even if you were way behind, you could flip a heat with two great waves in less than five minutes.

Unless north and northwest swells influenced the lineup. Which is precisely how it was playing out in our semifinal - and every heat.

For the most part, northwest swell sets presented unrideable waves, as literally tons of violent, moving water created temporary strong riptides that destroyed the clarity of the take-off zone.

Just one of those big sets would require at least five minutes for the lineup to calm and reset itself to provide the ideal conditions for the perfect barrels that formed from one of the smaller and cleaner westerly sets.

This was a major factor.

Very few surfers would choose to surf a day like this were it not for the fact it was the Pipeline Masters.

You had to be elite, confident, knowledgeable, and wise on this day, as well as be able to gulp down your fear and trepidation and trust your instincts and skills implicitly.

It was quite amazing no one was seriously hurt or injured. Now, I would have to come from behind in these same conditions.

I snagged a clean inside wave, about ten feet in size, but to great fortune, it drew back into a beautiful, long and clean barrel.

I slotted in and, after a few seconds, slingshotted out to the cheers of the crowd. I knew the score would have to be big.

Equally important, that wave put me on the right cadence with the rhythm of the waves and the lineup.

I needed three good waves in ten minutes and now I had the first one. To my continuing fortune, the lineup remained clean and settled.

I would have to focus on perfect positioning to snatch the additional two waves from the other three competitors.

That's exactly what happened. I caught another good wave and posted another high score.

I kicked out, paddled back into the lineup - and established the inside position. A must in any surf contest, but in this horse race, it is a particularly high-risk, high-reward post.

A fantastic bomb set wave out of the west was headed right for me to my left side, the perfect wave to put this heat to rest.

However, as it drew ever closer, my anticipation threatened to fly off the Richter scale, and so did Buckley.

He paddled hard and right at me from the east, trying to cop the inside position.

What ensued was a classic old-school, no-priority-rule paddle battle for inside positioning and the right of way to control and catch the wave.

In this career-defining moment, there was just no way I was going to let Buckley steal my inside position.

I paddled side by side with a great and capable peer breathing down my neck for a wave that could be a perfect 10 - or result in a life-threatening injury.

I knew that no matter what, I just had to catch this wave!

In doing so, there would be a split second where I would have to redirect my position from paddling toward the west and then quickly redirect by a 45-degree angle toward the east, facing the beach, to swing into take-off mode.

In this moment of truth, I would have to turn my back to the 20-foot wave while also blocking Buckley so that he could not slip through that narrow gap and steal inside position of first priority.

Calling upon the experience and courage of my entire Pipeline surfing career, at that very last second, I whipped around my seven-foot-ten single fin, held my inside position, blocked Buckley, paddled with full commitment as hard as I could to catch one of the greatest waves of my life.

This intense and threatening action happened within just a few seconds. As soon as I got to my feet, down the steep face of the wave, I went.

I had caught it at the last possible second, made the drop, hit my bottom turn, and pulled right into a giant spitting barrel.

What a ride!

As I exited, I blew a kiss to the sky. I was headed to my third and last Pipe Masters Final, but unlike the other two, after that wave, I felt unstoppable.

It had to be my day!

The beach went crazy as I went on to win the heat. Occy finished second and was headed to the final with me. Byrne was out, as was Buckley.

Occy and I delivered in the clutch and held off the two crafty Pipe specialists to secure our spot in the finals.

Interestingly, we were the tour regulars, too.

Years later, in their end-of-the-century issue, Surfing magazine rated the 1984 Pipe Masters as one of the top-five greatest surfing events in the history of the sport.

While the waves and the intensity of that day still have rarely been matched over four decades, what made the day so incredible was the list of competitors for the final.

For the first and only time of the day, six competitors paddled out as we switched to a six-man final.

Today, a pro tour final will only have two surfers in the water competing against each other.

This kind of Wild West six-man surfing brawl still exists at some big-wave events, but not at Pipe anymore.

The Finalists

Who were the five other competitors with me?

We'll begin with the sixth-place finisher, Tom Carroll, on his way to a second-straight ASP World Tour title.

His second Pipe Masters Final was to be, sadly, a disaster for him. A horrendous wipeout early on in the final knocked him silly, and he never recovered.

He was a nonfactor, which is crazy and hard to believe, but things like that can happen at Pipeline.

I remember looking at him about halfway through the final and noticed he was out of position, looking dazed, out of his realm.

The footage of his wipeout would go on to be seen by the entire surfing generation in the VHS tape of the contest that came out the following year.

It was just the worst and I'm certain he was probably concussed from it.

He finished last.

Over the next few years, Carroll would figure out what he did wrong, adjust as great champions do, and win three Pipeline Masters to add to his two world titles, securing the biggest event notch to what many feel is the greatest career of all time for a goofy-foot surfer.

When he won Pipe in 1987, he did so by dropping in and literally snapping his board into a tube-riding position halfway down the face - a 90-degree torque of the legs.

No bottom turn, no angled drop-in, no slowing down the board middrop, no wiggling into position, just straight down - and straight across.

Those watching at the home of the original Pipe Master, Gerry Lopez, were beside themselves, gasping and hooting while trying to figure out how Carroll did it.

Well, quite simply, he has the strongest calf muscles this side of Dane Kealoha, veritable tree trunks.

He used his fitness and his physique to gain advantage and carve out superior position inside the barrel, then his supreme tube-riding skills swept aside the field.

Champions always find a way to gain an edge, just as I was about to do. 

In fifth place was the Hawaiian legend Derek Ho, the younger brother of the iconic Hawaiian hero Michael Ho.

Derek had won the Duke that winter, and his Pipe Final was so close to greatness and victory.

However, despite charging some huge barrels, he came up short.

But, like Tom Carroll, Derek was just getting warmed up. He went on to win two Pipe Masters and become Hawaii's first professional world champion.

In fourth place was the 1978 world champion, Rabbit Bartholomew, the man I beat in my professional debut when he was the top-rated surfer in the world.

Rabbit was arguably the best backside tube rider at Pipeline since first riding the wave in 1973.

On this day, in the twilight of his career, he charged monster sets and surfed with abandon.

To this day, he remains one of the greatest surfers in the history of the sport and will forever be remembered by an entire generation for his big-wave bravado at Pipeline.

In third place was Max Medeiros.

Unknown to most, he was the classic Outer Island Hawaiian ripper, one of those innumerable Hawaiians who would show up on the North Shore of Oahu every winter and surf with great skill in the Pipeline and Sunset Beach events.

Max was a goofy foot from the beautiful island of Kauai, which contained its share of great big-wave breaks and secret spots and also was home to a young grommet, Andy Irons, who would battle Kelly Slater for world supremacy two decades later.

Ahead of his time, Max rode shorter boards than most, was a fearless charger, and caught some great barrels, but came up a bit short of a win.

To prove his third place in 1984 wasn't a fluke, he would do the same thing the following year, this time in the even bigger and more dangerous waves of the 1985 final won by Occhilupo.

Speaking of Occy, there was my young Aussie nemesis again, in a staredown with me in another event.

But not just any event.

My event, during my final turn on its stage as a serious competitor.

He was already a brilliant surfer and ruthless competitor, as well as an outstanding tube rider.

As mentioned, Occy would win the next year, and then many years later, in 2000, go on to win a world title. 

Add it up, and there were four future world champions and four future first-time Pipeline Masters champions in that final.

How much more historic could it be?

The 1984 Pipeline Masters Final

As for the final, my rest time on the beach after the semifinal sped by pretty fast.

I surfed in the third and final heat of the second round, so after winning that heat and returning to the beach, I had to quickly reboot for a long, grueling final with these five great surfers.

The first minutes featured really clean conditions.

The sun was out, and the swell had peaked in size and was now cleaner, slightly smaller, and more organized.

The wind had let up a bit, and the crowd on the beach was fully into it as the six of us paddled out together.

This was it! The one hour of my life toward which everything had been moving since my parents bought me that first surfboard at Offshore Surf Shop in Carlsbad for my 12th birthday in March of 1973.

In the final, the top four rides would count in each surfer's final score.

The ocean was still filled with many dangerous closeout sets and the great waves were far and few in between, and hard to come by.

Wave selection would still be the most critical element of this final. Getting four waves was far from guaranteed, let alone scoring well on all of them.

Whichever surfer caught four clean waves, big or medium, got barreled, and came back out would probably win.

Yet that is exactly what happened to me. I caught four good waves. I don't remember any great ones or bad ones, just good rides.

A funny thing about the final that sealed and defined my career: I don't remember much about it.

Instead of a movie reel playing in my mind, and despite the fact that I've watched the VHS tape numerous times, my memories roll through more like Polaroid snapshots.

Also, it wasn't nearly as dramatic as my come-from-behind win in Round 2. I felt it proceeded more according to the script.

Reverting back to a golf comparison, it was like birdie, birdie, par, and now, a two-foot birdie putt for the win!

Occy scored a great barrel in the final, probably the best wave of the final.

Rabbit was surfing huge waves on the second reef, but no barrels. Tom Carroll caught nothing after his wipeout.

I never saw Max.

As for Derek? This brings us back to my dream from 16 hours earlier. Derek had been in form all day, looking like a potential winner.

In his two future Pipeline Masters wins, he would reach the stature of Gerry Lopez, becoming one of the greatest of all Hawaiian surf legends.

Like Gerry Lopez and Rory Russell, he would become recognized as a true King of the Pipeline.

But not on this day.

If even just for one day, Joey Buran, the Sand Crab from Carlsbad, was going to be the King of the Pipeline.

That's just the way it was meant to be.

The slight edge I held over Derek was my knowledge of these types of conditions. It's that simple.

I recognized, caught, and properly surfed the right waves - not the biggest and most exciting waves, just four of the best.

As already mentioned, but worth stating again, over the last seven years I'd forced myself to surf these kinds of dangerous days, without the usual hectic crowds that the better days drew in.

Those sessions gave me a database of muscle memory for this kind of day.

I understood and had the code for recognizing and catching the winning waves of the Pipe Masters on December 17, 1984.

In essence, every big scary day I had surfed Pipeline in times past, I was winning the Pipe Masters.

Now, I was in the process of making it official.

I won the Pipe Masters, over and over, winter after winter, on those big, uncrowded, scary days.

Then, the dream flowed into my conscious experience in the water.

It reappeared during the latter part of the final after I had just completed a ride and was paddling back out to the lineup.

What pops up is a huge, big, beautiful barrel with Derek Ho perfectly positioned inside it.

"This is my dream!"

I could hear the beach screaming and cheering for Derek, but I knew right then he would not complete this incredible ride... and he did not.

The thick and thunderous lip of the wave smacked down and detonated on his head, knocking him off his board at the very last second, turning what could have been a perfect score into a low-scoring, insignificant wipeout.

As I pushed through the wave, I popped out the other side and thought, "This is my dream, and I am winning the Pipeline Masters!"

Bang, bang, bang! That's how it was!

Yet again, God had just revealed Himself to me and, in so doing, confirmed to my heart that, at that very moment, I would win.

There were still 15 minutes to go.

When you're winning a final, 15 minutes feels like an eternity, one in which countless bad scenarios dart in and out of your mind.

But wouldn't you know it? Yet another ally appeared on my side... the weather. A big rain squall swept in to close the deal for me.

Just as it did, lo and behold, a single wave popped up from the west, a perfect eight-foot barrel, inside of the other competitors.

This was the fourth wave I needed! I surfed it perfectly, slotting into the clean, deep barrel and popping out equally as clean.

It was like a short touchdown that secures a football game in the last minute for an insurmountable two-possession lead.

Nothing exciting, not a mic drop, but more like a layup in basketball, an artistic spin to finish the long program in figure skating, or a standard blocked shot by the goalie in hockey.

That's what it was. An easy eight-foot barrel in the driving rain to lock it down, fulfill my dream, and make surfing history. 

I was the 1984 Pipeline Masters champion.

After that wave, the weather turned more violent. My wave was the final decent-scoring barrel of the final.

As the latest rain squall receded, a big closeout set from the northwest plowed through with unrideable waves, followed by a huge riptide that tore up and destroyed the lineup.

Announcing the Champion

Then the horn sounded, signaling that the final was over after the final hour of a full day... a day that encompassed my entire young adult life.

I was exhausted beyond measure when I reached the beach. Here now was the moment of truth.

Without the computer scoring that the ASP World Tour used, the handwritten results were not officially known by the beach crowd.

It was like going back to the 1970s and the old IPS tour!

One thing we who surfed in that era all knew was that the tone and veracity of the beach crowd and how it cheered would generally tell you who won.

As I exited the water, the crowd swarmed me, screaming, "Joey Buran! Joey Buran!"

They cheered and congratulated me as if I had won.

My friend and Carlsbad surfing mentor in my earliest years, Billy Stang, had been by my side throughout my entire Pipeline career.

He came up to me, hugged me and said, "Joey! You just won the Pipe Masters!"

That was it! That's all he said as he hugged me, and the beach crowd swarmed me.

Those words from Billy, himself a great Pipeline surfer, carried the weight of a library of books. They meant everything.

Within moments, all the finalists were on the podium, and the results were announced, starting with sixth place and then moving up to first.

Here is where it again grew interesting for me.

I had been in "the zone" all day, feeling that aura of invincibility and supreme concentration all athletes who are great at their sports experience on particularly special days, that level of concentration and situational awareness often making the difference between winning and losing.

As it definitely did at Pipeline. But now, I was decelerating, coming back down to earth.

That shield and focus were giving way to the present reality. I regained awareness of my surroundings just as they announced Occy's name.

Did he win? Did I miss my name being called second? What?

I wasn't sure if they'd announced him the winner. Strange, right? I suppose it all just seemed too good to be true.

For a full second, I didn't comprehend the results.

Then I turned to Tom Carroll, who was on my left. "You won, mate!" he said, grabbing me with a big smile on his face.

That's when I knew!

If Tom Carroll tells Joey Buran he won the Pipe Masters, then by the powers that be, "Joey Buran is the Pipeline Masters champion!"

Within about five minutes, rain squall number two came in, this one a screamer, a 5-to-10-minute monsoonal downpour.

The beach party was over. The trophy I was holding was a perpetual trophy, so one of the officials came over and took it from me.

I held it for 10, maybe 15 minutes. But it didn't matter.

Now, I had to wait for my ride home, my dream fulfilled, knowing my second life would begin, a life beyond the dream.

Words by Joey Buran | Surfer, Pipeline Master, and Author

Excerpt from the book "Beyond the Dream: From the King of Pipeline to a Life of Serving and Inspiring Others" (Joey Buran, September 2024, Transformation Media Books)