Surfer Profile: Grant Baker

Highlights:
Mavericks 2006 Champ. 2007 XXL winner Biggest Wave. 2008 2nd at Mavericks, 2008 biggest ever session at Cortes

Sneaking in through the backdoor of a magazine vote was Twiggy’s only route to the 2006 Mavericks event. On top of this, he had serious work commitments at the time and had been told that it probably wouldn’t be such a good idea to leave these commitments at such a time, that it might be better to stick around in South Africa, that if he went his job might not actually be here on his return.
When I phoned Twiggy after the event had run off, it was difficult to speak to him. There was so much screaming and whistling and shouting in the background, and this was three days after he had won the event. his gamble had paid off. From an outsider who got onto the list from a mag vote, who was in trouble with his boss for going surfing, Twiggy was suddenly one of the most well – known big wave surfers in the world.
Some called it a fluke, that he was lucky enough to get two good waves in each heat. Twiggy confounded these critics by posting a close second in the same event the next year, at perfect Mavericks. Then he followed through with the session at Cortes Bank that saw some of the biggest waves of all time ridden by him, Greg Long, Mike Parsons and Brad Gerlach. This session saw Twig score the Billabong XXL prise for the biggest wave, and also got him magazine coverage in National Geographic for riding one of the biggest waves ever ridden by a human.
Whew!
That is a lot of big wave riding in a fairly short period of time. Before Twig bounced onto the international big wave arena he had always been a Red Bull Big Wave Africa stalwart, making finals, pulling into barrels, and enjoying himself amongst the chaos of the shifting and malevolent Dungeons line-up. Twig has always been an enthusiastic participant in the event, and was the surfer who came up with idea of sharing the prize money when Greg Long won the event.
Despite his small stature, Twiggy is always one to pull a trick or two out of the bag, whether it be a big drop, a big barrel, a wave or two on The Slab or some naughty antics on the beach afterwards. With his current big wave rep there will be plenty of eyes on Twig this year, just the ay he likes it. “My biggest motivation in surfing is simply surfing big and heavy waves. After this I reckon the second biggest motivation is surfing uncrowded waves. So big and uncrowded would be my favourite.”
All surfers, thus all big wave surfers, have fears as well. “My biggest fear is to miss a good swell.”
Somehow I don’t think there is too much chance of that.