One had the sense hearing stories about Mike Doyle during his induction into the Hermosa Beach Surfer’s Walk of Fame on Saturday, that his bronze plaque on the Hermosa Beach pier will elevate not just his stature, but the stature of the Surfer’s Walk, itself.
The 72-year-old Doyle’s semi reclusive life in Cabo San Lucas over the past three decades, where he continues to surf and paint, both added to his mythic aura and delayed his induction.
Lifelong friend Chris Bredesen, in his introductory remarks, recalled hesitating at the front door of Doyle’s Cabo home because of a sign that reads, “Call before visiting.”
Bredesen wanted to go to a phone to telephone Doyle.
But Ronnie Meistrell, who was with Bredesen, and is also a longtime friend of Doyle’s, recalled, “It didn’t say telephone. It said call. So I called, real loud, “Doyle, open the door.’
Doyle welcomed his friends, as he does all his friends, with shots of tequila, Meistrell said.
But despite his colorful reputation, Doyle never let the surfing lifestyle interfere with business, whether the business was a surf contest or a new venture.
Meistrell, during his introductory comments, recalled that during his relatively short competitive career, Doyle won the 1968 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational, the 1970 Surfing World Championships, two Surfer Magazine reader polls, and dozens of other surfing, paddleboarding and lifeguarding competitions.
At 22nd Street in Hermosa, where he began surfing with earlier Walk of Fame inductees Greg Noll, Dewey Weber, Rick Stoner and Bing Copland, Doyle’s style made him a favorite of photographer Leroy Grannis. Grannis’ 1967 photo of Doyle crouching in a bottom turn on a 35-foot Waimea wave is one of surfing’s most memorable and recognizable images.
But his surfing career wasn’t limited to riding waves.
In the early ’60s, when surfers waxed their boards with melted paraffin, Doyle and partners Rusty Miller and Garth Murphy added a tropical scent to a wax they sold for 10 cents in surf shops. The surf wax company now has $9 million in annual sales.
Doyle, the board shaper and manufacturer has sold over 30,000 Doyle surfboards, 10,000 stand-up Doyle paddleboards and 190,000 Doyle soft-top surfboards. He and Boogey Board inventor Tom Morey invented the soft-top board in 1974. It continues to be used by just about every surf instruction program in the world, including the Los Angeles County Junior Lifeguard program.
But his potentially biggest game changer failed because of a minor design flaw.
In 1970, he and fellow surfer and skier Joey Cabell, who would found the Charthouse Restaurants, designed a mono ski that they hoped would give skiers the feeling of surfing down mountains.
The mono ski worked reasonable well, but not well enough because the boot bindings were mounted parallel to the ski. A decade later Tom Sims and Jake Burton  mounted the bindings perpendicular to the ski and the snowboard era began.
“Mike lived for competition. At surf contests we called him ‘Malibu Mike.’ In lifeguard competitions we called him ‘Iron Mike,'” Bredesen said.
“The thing I liked about Mike Doyle,” surfboard shaper Hap Jacobs said, “was he loved contest surfing and he always won or made the finals riding a Jacobs.”
Doyle, during his acceptance speech, repaid the compliment by crediting Jacobs with launching his professional surfing career.
“You probably don’t know this Hap, but I’m blaming you. After high school, I had no idea what I was going to do. But I knew I wasn’t going to college. One morning, I won a contest in Malibu and that afternoon stopped by your shop to order a new board. You told me to pick out any board I wanted and when I was done with it, to come back and pick out another one.
“When I went home that day with my new board, my mom wanted to know why I still had my money. I said I wasn’t sure, but that I thought I had won the board as a prize.
“The next day, I went back to Hap and asked him why he gave me the board. He said as long as I was on his team I’d keep getting free boards.
“That started me thinking, ‘What else can I get for if I surf? I took that theory and ran with it,'” Doyle said. ER
Surfer’s Walk of fame weekend
Hermosa’s Surfer’s Walk of Fame weekend began Friday evening with a party for this year’s inductee Mike Doyle at the Hermosa Beach Historical Society Surf Museum, followed by a screening of professional surfer John John Florence’s new film “Done.” The Big Wave Challenge awards, presented annually during the Surfer’s Walk of Fame weekend by the South Bay Boardriders Club, was cancelled this year because of the winter’s small surf.
On Saturday, the Surfer’s Walk of Fame ceremony was followed by the Sixth Annual Spyder Surf Festival, featuring local surf bands, kids games, a fashion show and giveaways at surf vendor booths, which lined PierPlaza.
Spyder Surf co-owner Dennis Jarvis said surf vendors gave away over $20,000 in free merchandise and prizes.
“One of my friend’s kids added up what he walked away with and it totaled $450 in value,” Jarvis said. ER
