Masters champ Jay a grommet at heart
IT’S been a big couple of weeks for Jay Phillips, the long-serving president of the Snapper Rocks Surfriders Club.
Firstly, he got a late callup as a wildcard and went on to win his first Australian title in the over-40 national masters at Cabarita after placing second last year.
He then backed up on the weekend as the club’s perennial anchorman, a role he has relished, to steer Snapper into the No.1 spot in the Queensland qualifier for next year’s Australian Battle of the Boardriding Clubs.
Phillips started surfing when he was five years old – “getting blown across with the wind at the Fingal boat harbour and then along the rocks of the Fingal Point causeway”.
He learnt on his dad’s Goodtime single fin and by the time he turned seven, his father bought him a single fin from the local surfshop at Main Beach, Fingal Head.
“It was a challenge like no other sport and I would challenge my mates to go further. It felt like the best thing I had ever tried in my life,’’ said the gifted natural-footer who possesses a distinctive smooth yet powerful radical style honed on the Tweed and Gold Coast point breaks.
His early influences were Kirra’s Craig “Scat” Pitchers, Jason “Butto” Buttenshaw – “he was my hero” – and Jason “China” O’Connor.
Former Snapper president and world champion Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew has had a huge influence as both a contest strategist and mentor coach. Phillips was inspired by the styles of Brad Gerlach, Tom Curren and Mark Occhilupo.
While Phillips has won a Qualifying Series, a bunch of Pro Juniors and collected the prestigious Duke Kahanamoku Trophy for best junior performance of the year as a 16year-old, he sidestepped a world tour career in preference for competing for his Snapper club.
“My surfing wasn’t all about individual competition,” he said.
“It has been the high pressure situations competing as the team anchorman for Snapper Rocks in those mustwin heats in which I bought 30 or 40 victories for the club and still bring them in to this day. As a team that’s what I love more.”
His role is fairly simple: to be the red-hot surfer who dominates the points and looks after the kids coming up.
Phillips said he liked to mix it up with his quiver.
“Some days I ride a twin fin, a single fin, a longboard session but my love for the regular thruster is everything,” says the over-40 years legend who is still a grommet at heart.