Michael Ho

Hawaiian surfer and one of the sport's first full-time professionals, who won the 1982 Pipeline Masters while competing with a broken wrist in a cast.

Born in San Mateo, California, on 13 July 1957 and raised in Waimanalo, Hawaii, Michael Ho began surfing at age three. Of Chinese, native Hawaiian and American heritage, he became one of Hawaii's first full-time professional surfers when he joined the international tour in 1976, finishing as high as third in 1978 and holding a top-10 world ranking for a decade. Ho's most celebrated achievement came at the 1982 Pipeline Masters. Having broken his wrist shortly before the event, he competed the final day wearing a plaster cast, riding to victory in one of the most dramatic and unexpected triumphs in the contest's history. He won the Hawaiian Triple Crown twice, in 1983 and 1985, and the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational in 1978 and 1981, and reached five Pipeline Masters finals in total. Ho never won a pro circuit event outside Hawaii but was renowned as one of the finest tube riders of his era, helping invent the 'pigdog' tuberiding technique, and was known as the world's best 'position' surfer for his ability to place himself in the most critical part of a wave using the simplest line. Ho continued competing into his 60s, winning the World Masters Championship in 2000 at age 43 and remaining a fixture at Pipeline into his mid-sixties. He is the brother of 1993 world champion Derek Ho and the father of professional surfers Coco Ho and Mason Ho, making the Ho family one of the most storied dynasties in Hawaiian surfing.

Precise positional surfing and pioneering tube-riding technique

Patriarch of one of Hawaiian surfing's great families and one of the finest tube riders in the sport's history