Grant Baker was getting cozy with his favorite Puerto peak during his Saturday morning warm-up session. - WSL / Tony Heff
When South African Grant Baker won the 2016 Puerto Escondido Challenge he re-affirmed his place among the big wave surfing elite. Not that there'd ever been any question that he didn't belong in such rarified air. The win in Puerto last summer -- where he admits he caught one of the "best waves of his life" during the final -- cemented his run to the '16 Big Wave Tour (BWT) world title, the second BWT championship of his career. Raised in the warm, punchy beachbreaks surrounding his hometown of Durban, Baker reckons it was good training for tackling 15- to 18-foot grinding tubes at Puerto's Playa Zicatela (aka Mexican Pipeline), the world's heaviest beach break.