A friendlier face you couldn’t hope to find. Nor, for that matter, a friendlier face-owner, than former world tour competitor, current world tour commentator, and lifelong gangster-rap fan Ross Williams, who during his years on tour could be relied upon almost without fail to finish the year in either 15th, 16th, or 17th place in the rankings. It’s thus with great sadness and a wince of imagined pain that we report the collision of said face with the Haleiwa reef during Ross’s heat in the Haleiwa International Open. Thankfully the damage isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, and its features have since been returned to their rightful places:

Happy New Years ???? /// I was so psyched to surf in the HIO at Haleiwa this morning against my good buddies @jackjohnson (who won by the way!) @benjiweatherley #matty @surfermags (no show????) @jdubs0017 @cleanfeetfreak and others can’t remember ???? waves are 10-12′ I dove head first after a wave into the “toilet bowl” straight into the reef. I cracked my head open and nearly ripped a piece of my nose off. Thankfully the CT scan came back ok. I got 11 staples and will need plastic surgery. At least my New Years will be buzzy!! Thanks for the best wishes and have a safe night????????

A photo posted by Ross Williams (@rosswilliamshawaii) on Dec 31, 2015 at 3:43pm PST

The thought of losing one’s nose is a singularly distressing one, and always puts me in mind of a favourite poem of mine, the identity of whose author remains unknown:

           There was a man and he was mad

And he ran up the steeple,

And there he cut his nose off

And flung it at the people.

Ross Williams is neither mad nor noseless, just mildly disfigured for a short while, and thus still able to take his place in the commentary booth come the start of the new season.