He Discovers the Little Things Do Count : Surfing: Seal Beach native Thomas gets back into routine, hoping to regain elite status.

With seconds ticking away in his surfing heat, Marty Thomas furiously paddled to catch a wave he probably would have let pass by harmlessly a year ago.

But not this one. Not this year.

Catching the wave, he threw a couple moves before it closed out over him.

Nothing spectacular, but it was enough to move him into second place and advance through a second-round heat at the Life’s A Beach Open last week in Oceanside.

“It feels great just to win a close heat again,” said Thomas, who’s competing in next week’s Op Pro at the Huntington Beach Pier.

“Last year, I would have given up on that last wave. Instead, I was out there paddling as hard as I can, and I was rewarded for the effort.

“For the last two years, I was losing every close heat I was in. Now I’m winning them.”

It’s the little things, the details, that have been missing from Thomas’ surfing the past two years. Missing details that were showing up big on judges’ scorecards.

After placing 12th on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ world tour in 1989, ninth in 1990 and 14th in 1991, he dropped to 30th last year.

Dropping out of the top 16 was embarrassing to Thomas. He blames nobody but himself.

“I had all the momentum going my way and I started taking some time off from training,” he said. “You can’t do that.

“There are dozens of guys out there who are more than willing to take your ranking, guys who are surfing and training all day long.”

Thomas has rejoined them this year.

He’s determined to return to his standards of 1990, when he made the Op Pro finals. He surfs and runs each day and religiously lifts weights, putting on hold one of his favorite hobbies: golf.

“I was golfing way too much the past two years,” said Thomas, who shoots in the low 80s on area courses. “If the waves were lousy, I would put off surfing (until) tomorrow, and go play a round.”

Thomas, 24, has changed his priorities, just as he changed them a couple of years ago.

A Seal Beach native who has lived on Hawaii’s North Shore the past 10 years, Thomas bought a home in Long Beach. He got married. He wondered if he was burning out on surfing.

Every surfer on the tour will tell you that traveling takes a toll on you, and Thomas was no exception.

It drained his aggressive surfing style. He was known as a classic “hassler,” but he no longer fought and scrapped competition for waves like he once did.

“That was my forte for years,” he said. “I would sit on a wave, take one away from a guy, frustrate him.

“I was a completely different surfer the past two years. I wasn’t hassling any more. I was just sitting there, watching.”

He nearly became a spectator this season.

After halfheartedly training for the season, he tore cartilage in his ribs while competing on the Australian leg of the tour in April.

“I surfed anyway,” he said. “But I was only about 40%. I had never been injured before.”

The injury “was a slap in the face.” He had maintained a strong conditioning program early in his career, keeping him strong, flexible and injury-free. Maybe it was time to get back to work, he figured.

“It didn’t take much,” he said. “Just a little effort. I’ve only been working out for two months, and I already feel the effects of it.”

Thomas has never won a world tour event, a streak he hopes he can end at the Op Pro. He has finished second five times and has beaten the best, just not with everything on the line.

Anyone who watched the 1990 Op finals will remember Thomas’ disappointment. He pounded his fist into the water in disgust as he walked toward the shore.

He still rates the final, where he lost to Todd Holland of Cocoa Beach, Fla., as “the biggest highlight and biggest disappointment of my career.”

“That second was hard to take,” he said. “I remember having some great heats there, finishing third one year.”

Looking back, he thinks he might have put too much emphasis on the finals.

Most of his family and friends were there watching. He considers Op his home contest, having grown up just a few miles up Pacific Coast Highway, as well as the contests in Hawaii, where he lived as a teen-ager.

“After the finals, I went into the competitors’ area and cried for five minutes,” he said. “I was happy and sad at the same time.”

His family and friends will be back next week, hoping he can win the title that has eluded him for so long. And what better place to win one?

“My greatest memories are competing at the Op,” he said. “The big crowds there are always pumping you up.”