Surfing at San Clemente : Silva Hopes to Work His Way Up Rankings With Victories

Going into his fourth-round heat in the $35,000 Del Taco-Naugles Surf event Friday near the San Clemente pier, Doug Silva of Solana Beach believed he had something to prove.

Silva, who was ranked first overall in the Professional Surfing Assn. of America standings in June, fell to fourth when he finished 57th at Oceanside.

“That performance disgruntled me and made me determined to regain the top spot here,” he said.

Silva, who defeated second-ranked Todd Chesser of San Diego in Friday’s fourth-round heat, will get a chance to make a big dent in the PSAA rankings today when he takes on top-rated Bud Llamas of Huntington Beach, Chesser and Mike Cruikshank of Dana Point in the fifth round.

Llamas and Cruikshank, along with the rest of the PSAA elite, will start competing today when fifth-round action begins at 7 a.m.

“I think it’s an advantage for me to have surfed in previous rounds,” Silva said, “because that gives me a chance to have a feel for the conditions in the water before I get to compete against those who drew byes and are thus more rested than I am.

“I don’t want to rely on others to knock (Llamas and Chesser) off the top. I want to knock them out myself and then go on to regain first place in the rankings.”

In his two PSAA events this season before Oceanside, Silva finished fifth March 27 in Haleiwa, Hawaii, and seventh May 21 in Santa Cruz.

Surf Notes

Australian Mitch Thorson, who is ranked 24th on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals World Tour, overcame a second-place finish in his two previous heats by finishing first in a third-round heat. Amateur Shane Beschen of San Clemente finished second and Vinnie De La Pena of Laguna Niguel finished third. Jeff Booth of Laguna Beach, who won two PSAA events at Salt Creek Beach in Laguna Niguel last year before joining the World Tour at the start of 1989, was fourth. “I broke my board yesterday and got it patched up, but I just didn’t surf well,” Booth said. . . . In bodyboarding competition, which started Friday, Shawnee Oide of Honolulu, the only woman to compete in PSAA events in her specialty, finished third in the third heat behind Kevin Cerv of Leucadia and Greg Doss of Dana Point.