Now retired after 18 years spent living large on the World Tour, Taj Burrow isn’t the least bit concerned about what comes next.
If the world were a tennis ball, Taj Burrow would be a big ol’ Labrador, standing there slobbering, waiting excitedly for someone to throw it. To say he’s enjoyed his 18 years on the World Tour might be understating it a little. The son of hippie folk who fled California for a godforsaken corner of Australia, Burrow jumped straight back on a plane—business class, of course—and made the world his oyster: surfing, partying, after-partying, chasing “the big city lights.” He joined the Tour ranks when he was 19 years old and quickly became the millennium’s most bankable surf-video star and the Tour’s resident bon vivant. Now, at 38, with boundless enthusiasm for surfing still twinkling in his beady blue eyes, Burrow is returning home to the Yallingup countryside to settle down, raise a family, and surf on his own terms. Looking back over his career for a defining theme, you could easily focus on the world title that eluded Burrow. But the truth is, that stopped causing him sleepless nights long ago. Besides, as one of his friends puts it, “World champ? Mate, who cares? He’s the world champ of living!”
SD Retirement. Why now?
TB : It couldn’t be more obvious to me. Having a grom and enjoying it so much, I just feel like I’m getting sick of traveling and the speed of the Tour and having to maintain your fitness and your diet and your surfing ability. I can barely keep up with the Tour when it’s just me, but doing all that and being a dad at the same time is too much. And I don’t feel competitive at all these days. I feel more competitive on the Ping-Pong table than in the water. I don’t like that feeling when I’m about to surf against someone. I just don’t enjoy it anymore.
SD Was there a moment when that became clear to you?
この記事は Surfer の November 2016 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Surfer の November 2016 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
60 Years Ahead
We had a whole plan for this year. Funny, right? Surfer's 60 year anniversary volume was going to be filled with stories nodding to SURFER’s past, with cover concepts paying homage to the magazine’s most iconic imagery. Our new Page One depicts something that’s never happened in surfing before, let alone on a prior SURFER cover. And our table of contents was completely scrapped and replaced as we reacted to the fizzing, sparking, roiling world around us. In other words, 2020 happened to SURFER, just like it happened to you.
A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong
You don’t make 60 years of magazines without dropping some balls. Here are a few
THE LGBTQ+ WAVE
Surf culture has a long history of marginalizing the LGBTQ+ community, but a new generation of queer surfers is working to change that
For Generations to Come
Rockaway’s Lou Harris is spreading the stoke to Black youth and leading surfers in paddling out for racial justice
Christina Koch, 41
Texas surfer, NASA astronaut, record holder for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman
END TIMES FOR PRO SURFING
By the time the pandemic is done reshaping the world, will the World Tour still have a place in it?
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
After decades of exclusive access to Hollister Ranch, the most coveted stretch of California coast is finally going public
What They Don't Tell You
How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?
Four Things to Make You Feel A Little Less Shitty About Everything
Helpful reminders for the quarantine era
The Art of Being Seen
How a group of black women are finding creative ways to make diversity in surfing more visible
