OP PRO SURFING CHAMPIONSHIPS : New-Look Potter Looking for a Victory in Op Pro : Surfing: Englishman got a shave and a haircut and then won his first competition of the season two weeks ago.

Gone are the long, blondish-brown locks of hair and the scruffy beard that surfing fans saw so often on the victory stand last season, but so little this year.

The way defending world champion Martin Potter figured it, a change in appearance would change his fortunes. After finishing no higher than third in his first four competitions this season, Potter of Newquay, England, made a trip to the barber shop.

Surfing with a new look and a new attitude, Potter got his first victory of the season two weeks ago at the Life’s a Beach contest at Oceanside. He’s hoping for similar results at the Op Pro surfing championships, which begin today at the Huntington Beach Pier.

“I’m traveling incognito,” Potter said of his clean shave and tightly cut ‘do. “I was becoming too recognizable (when competing) in Australia. Besides, the hair kept getting in my way. It was slowing me down.”

So was a shoulder injury.

Potter dislocated his shoulder six weeks before competing in Oceanside and had struggled to a third-, fifth- and two 17th-place finishes. But he was back in familiar territory at Oceanside, defeating Sunny Garcia in the final and moved up to seventh in the overall point standings with 5,008.

His bad start has left him nearly 1,600 points behind leader Rob Bain of Manly, Australia. At this point last season, Potter, 26, had won five of the first six events and was running away with the title.

“I’ve put too much importance on being the world champion,” said Potter, who led the tour in victories last year with six. “It seems like now I’m going out to defend titles. I’m letting the world-title stigma get to me.

“I finally got what I wanted, the title. Now I’m walking around stressing about it.”

At least until his next trip to the barber. . . .

Like Potter, defending women’s world champion Wendy Botha also has been battling injuries.

She missed the first stop on the tour at Santa Cruz while undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair ligament and cartilage damage in her right knee.

Botha of Sydney, Australia, injured her knee while surfing three days before the Santa Cruz competition in March.

“I was pulling out of a tube ride and my knee bent (sideways),” Botha said. “It sounded like I broke my leg. It snapped real loud. I guess I was lucky.”

Doctors gave Botha two options after the injury. She could undergo reconstructive surgery right away or have arthroscopic surgery and postpone the major surgery until the season ends in mid-December.

Botha chose the latter. The reconstructive surgery requires several weeks of rehabilitation, and Botha figured she could have the surgery and rest during the off-season.

Now that she’s back in the water, the injury hasn’t slowed her too much.

Surfing with a knee brace, she won the Coke meet in April at Sydney, Australia, and was third at the Life’s a Beach competition two weeks ago at Oceanside.

She has moved up to fifth in the point standings and hopes a strong showing at the Op Pro will keep her in the chase for another world title.

“I’ve surfed with a lot of pain in my first three events,” said Botha, who won the Op in 1987 and was fifth last year. “I fell behind because I missed the first contest. Any event in the beginning is important. Lisa (Andersen) and Pam (Burridge) have done well early, but I’ve won one coming off a pretty bad injury.”

With defending champion Kelly Slater now competing on the pro circuit, the Op junior amateur competition could be wide open.

Favorites this year include Rob Machado of Cardiff, who finished second to Slater last year, and Jeff Deffenbaugh of Huntington Beach, the defending U.S. amateur champion.

Four qualifying rounds in the Op junior begin today at 6:30 a.m. Boys and girls will compete together in 20-minute heats. The semifinals and finals are Saturday. The winner receives a trophy and a $1,000 scholarship.

Strange but true: And you thought pro surfing was all serious business. Not so, dudes. Just take a look at some of these blasts from past Op Pros:

1987--The crowd looks on in horror as a pigeon falls from the pier into the raging surf. Overcome with emotion, a spectator dives from the pier to rescue the drowning bird. The spectator didn’t exactly get a hero’s welcome when he carried the bird to the beach. He was arrested for violating the “no diving from the pier” law. The pigeon’s whereabouts are unknown.

1988--The rebellious Dave Parmenter of Huntington Beach makes a statement in his main event heat against Richard Marsh. Parmenter takes to the water on a longboard in protest of the “flapping, kicking and waving of gloves” that is being bred into modern surfers. Needless to say, Parmenter lost the heat.

1982--Ian Cairns, founder of the Op contest, was trapped under tons of metal scaffolding that collapsed while he was setting up the first Op contest site. Rescue workers eventually pulled the uninjured Cairns from the wreckage.

1984--A huge swell hit Huntington Beach during the trial heats, and one of the big waves knocked Willy Morris into the pier while he was paddling. The next thing Morris knew, the leash that tied his ankle to his board wrapped around one of the pier pilings. He was eventually freed, but was shaken by the accident.

Surf forecast: A hurricane off the southwest coast of Mexico created 10-foot waves at Huntington Beach last week, and surfing forecasters hope a similar storm will help the Op Pro this week.

Surfers have complained about the one- to four-foot waves the last two years at the Op Pro. But forecasters say two southwest swells this week should keep waves between three to five feet with occasional seven-footers.

Hurricane Iselle, which formed late last week, and another storm near Antarctica should create waves for the first few days of competition, said Sean Collins of Wave-Trak, a surf forecasting firm.

“Op has had good waves in the past but small toward the finals the last couple of years,” Collins said. “This year, we’ve had a good wave pattern. I think we’ll have good waves early, then dropping smaller toward the end of the week.

“Two things could happen then. One, we could get another hurricane, which is very likely this time of year. Second, we could get another storm from Antarctica.”

But Collins said large waves early in the week could cause problems for the amateur and women competing.

“There should be little waves left over from the hurricane (Iselle) and that might be a problem for the women and the juniors,” Collins said. “The current also could be a problem. The hurricane swells are so southerly that you get a radical south current pushing through the pier.

“As soon as they (surfers) take off on a wave, they’re committed to going through the pier. Then it’s hard to paddle back out with a strong current.”

Surfing Notes

ESPN will tape the Op Pro and show it Aug. 13 at 6:30 p.m. The show will be condensed into an hour-long telecast. . . . Women’s trial heats start today at 2 p.m. The men’s trial heats begin Monday at 7 a.m. . . . The men’s finals are set for Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and the women’s at 11 a.m. . . . The overall purse for the competition is $90,000. . . . A biography in the Op Pro program describes defending champion Richie Collins of Newport Beach as “annoying, flamboyant, unnerving and confusing. Sets his own standards at all times.” . . . Team Op has signed new pro Nea Post of Huntington Beach, a three-time National Scholastic Surfing Assn. champion. . . . The Op Pro beauty pageant is scheduled for Thursday and Friday mornings.