1/10/09  -   Australian Surfing Life Magazine

TUNNEL VISION

by Sullivan McLeod

There are so many  web wannabes out there chasing instant notoriety despite
having nothing worthwhile to say, it is refreshing to discover a largely
unheralded surfing book that is witty, clever and completely worth reading.
I stumbled upon Tunnel Vision in the bookstore of Coolangatta airport and
bought it on a whim, largely on the strength of its sub-title: “The true
story of my probably insane quest to become a professional surfer.” It
did not disappoint. The premise is simple but brilliant – McLeod, a fairly
average surfer from Margaret River and sometime standup comedian, decides
to live out his teenage fantasy of becoming a professional surfer. He goes
into training largely by drinking copious amounts of piss with a cast of
maniacs, and attempts to raise funds by performing standup comedy in seedy
clubs, and submitting himself to drug tests for schizophrenia. Along the
way, he  gets mugged, misses heats, loses most of his possessions and very
nearly his mind. The tone is set with the opening line: “I decided to be
a professional surfer a few years ago in a sauna in Norway.” Of course.
McLeod’s tragi-comic journey provides a vivid insight into the desperate
world of the WQS, the emotional rollercoaster ride of hope and despair that
keeps a colourful cast of characters from around the surfing world slogging
away at the qualifying grind with little chance of  success, like a bunch
of punters convinced their luck is about to change. Read it before sending
off that contest entry form. It might save you that $1500 to register as a
WQS competitor, spare you a lot of pain and provide more than a few laughs.
- Tim Baker

07/03/2009 – Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin

Not every McLeod has a silver lining.

If one is planning to be a pro surfer, ability on a board on a wave would seem a prerequisite. Sullivan McLeod refused to let such concerns hinder his attempt at surfing’s big time. Michael Jacobson reports.

Sullivan McLeod can hardly be blamed for not being an interested spectator as the high-profile Quiksilver Pro surfing event played out on the Gold Coast in recent days.

It’s tough when one’s professional surfing days are at an end, when all the glamour, perks, travelling to the big money tournaments to ride the biggest and best waves must be passed on to younger, fitter, and yes, more talented surfers.

This is particularly so in the case of Western Australian McLeod who, by his own admission, was never one of the youngest, fittest or most talented on the World Championship Tour – where names like Slater, Fanning and Occhilupo become feted – mainly because he never made WCT ranks.

In fact, McLeod wasn’t all that flash on the secondary tour, the World Qualifying Series, having finished a barely notable 567th in 2006, the year of his `insane quest’ to become a pro surfer.

However, despite all the things he was not, McLeod has claims to being the funniest bloke ever to attempt joining the pro ranks. His book, Tunnel Vision, is an almost perfect wave of constant mirth and misadventure.

“I’m going to be a professional surfer,” he tells mates over a few beers one night in Norway, but what is meant to be a throwaway comment refuses to be discarded. “The idea was completely ludicrous … in a lifetime of silly ideas this was my silliest.”

Much stands in McLeod’s way. Old boards, lack of funds – at one stage he ponders raising a few dollars by volunteering for a schizophrenia drug test – no sponsors and being based in a treehouse are just a few of the obstacles McLeod faces and courageously, or stupidly if you’re so inclined, decides to ignore.

After all, he reasons, he’s from Margaret River, which felt like the `epicentre of the surfing universe’ when he was growing up, a place where the kids would wag school and go to the beach to discover the teachers already there.

Once McLeod resolves to persist with his pro surfing dream, he at least makes a worthy effort, dropping weight, borrowing $20,000, earning more from stand-up comedy gigs, travelling to surfing hot spots to train and, at last, arriving in South Africa for his first legitimate WQS contest.

Unfortunately, McLeod misses his first heat by two hours, an error that rather sets the tone for the season to come, as well as for constant bouts of self-discovery.

“I’m a fake … maybe I’ve stumbled upon something deep about myself. . . or maybe I’m just drunk,” he writes, having left South Africa with a pro ranking of 845th in the world, ahead of just eight other WQS wannabes.

From here, McLeod’s litany of travails and his descriptions of people and places on the pro and qualifying circuit are a delight to read whether you’re a surfing fan or have never dipped a toe in the ocean.

From the slop of England’s Newquay, depression and theft in France and wonky wetsuits in Portugal, to being inspired by the likes of Dean Randazzo, who returns to the circuit just a month after chemotherapy, McLeod continues his fraught and funny journey. On his way to Spain he is exhilarated when a local surfer assumes he is a pro, and is just as thrilled the first time he doesn’t finish dead last in a heat. lie finishes second last.

Arrested in Brazil, the holding cell is more luxurious than most accommodation he’s endured on the circuit, and upon his release he scores his highest competition points so far.

Then it’s off to Hawaii, the world’s surfing haven, home of Haleiwa, Sunset and Pipeline, where McLeod knows he’s out of his league and still manages to ride the best wave of his competition career.

“If I was to analyse the real motivation behind doing the surf tour,” writes McLeod, “maybe it was because somewhere, deep inside, I actually thought I had a chance.”

He didn’t, but no matter, because there is triumph in McLeod’s trying and humour in trying too hard and not hard enough.

And in the end, there is something to be said about being the one-time 567th best pro surfer on the planet.

07-03-09_Weekend_Gold_Coast_Bulletin_feature

13/03/2009 – New Zealand Herald Review

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14/03/2009 – Courier Mail Review

AFTER seven years’ travel, a litany of bemusing jobs and an irrepressible desire to live dangerously, Sully “settles” on a surfing career.

From his tree house at Margaret River, he writes how he paid his $1,500 to the Association of Surfing Professionals and joined 800 or so would-be champions on the World Qualifying Series of 2006. Gathering points at more than 50 events, the top 15 joined 30 others to compete in the World Championship Tour. Sully came in 567. Which is pretty good considering that he missed heats, had his papers stolen while sleeping on a French beach, misread connecting flight times, entered Brazil (and ergo their jail) without a visa, had his three surfboards pinched, and was constantly skint, inebriated or looking for a bed (sometimes containing an equally adventurous female). But with stoicism and guile, this Aussie larrikin travelled to Indonesia, South Africa, Europe, Brazil and, of course, to Hawaii, and what he didn’t always achieve in the surf he made up for with some hair raising adventures.

No one knows better than Sully that he lacks the discipline and physique to be a great surfer. But he loves the surf, and he describes swells and manoeuvres with devotion. For us timid beach-goers, Tunnel Vision is a vicarious thrill. Sully introduces us to the big names, gives us an idea of their vicissitudes on the circuit.

This isn’t a poetic, rite-of passage story like Tim Winton’s Breath, but one man’s whimsical, compassionate look at the world of professional surfing. If you’re young and travelling with a light heart and even lighter pocket, you’ll especially enjoy Tunnel Vision. But hide it from nervous oldies until you come home!

Barbara Baker

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04/04/2009 – Courier Mail

Tunnel Vision: The True Story of My Probably Insane Quest to Become a Professional Surfer Sullivan McLeod Allen and Unwin, $24.95 SUBTITLED The True Story of my Probably Insane Quest to Become a Professional Surfer, this book starts in Norway. Sullivan McLeod began his crazy quest with little talent and even less money but one hell of a big mouth. Asked in a sauna in Scandinavia what he was going to do for the next year, McLeod vowed he was going to be a professional surfer.

As he had spent most of his 29 years being pretty much a professional nothing, it was a bit of a stretch for him to declare he was going to spend a year as a professional surfer. He’d carved the obligatory waves while growing up in Margaret River in Western Australia and his mates reckoned he might make a go of it before they collapsed laughing.

Surfing is such a part of the Australian psyche that there are few people who wouldn’t have come across it in one form or another – doing it, aspiring to it, reading about it or just sitting on the beach in awe of those who are passionate about it. Given that most of us would fall into the latter category before standing up, shaking the sand out of our towels and heading home to the suburbs, McLeod’s stories about life on the international professional surfing tour are a bit of an insight to a strange and remarkable world. His isn’t the tour of sponsored professional surfers with stickers on their surfboards, flashy sunglasses and a wardrobe of paid-for wetsuits. Instead it’s a world of sleeping rough (every cent being saved for event entry fees), secondhand surfboards and wetsuits that have seen better days.

McLeod competes in Indonesia, South Africa, England, France, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Hawaii and has some hairy adventures along the way – although his long-suffering mother probably flogged him when she finally read the book and found out what her secondeldest son had been up to for much of 2006. Interesting, insightful and good fun.

Bernadette Condren

04-04-09_Courier_Mail_Review