"This woman won seven world surfing titles — several of those were amateur titles — her first when she was 15 in Puerto Rico in 1968 (Fred Hemmings won the men's title that year)…."
"At her first contest for under 12s (she was the only girl competing) she beat 70 boys."
"Of course, women like Jericho Poppler, Debbie Beacham and Becky Benson won events, and Boyer took three world titles, but Margo dominated for a long, long time. People got sick of her winning. She was in another league a lot of the time. Women then tended to surf 'stylish and pretty', as Hawaiian resident and former pro surfer Randy Rarick puts it. But Oberg was aggressive, she was not as elegant as the others. Her turns were deeper and harder and she liked big waves.
"The men liked Margo, too. They liked her grit, they liked the way she surfed. They took her seriously, which is saying something when you consider the machismo of Hawaiian male surfers. For one thing she could surf three to four-metre Sunset better than a lot of men, says Rarick. 'She had exceptional wave knowledge, so much experience basically from spending so many hours in the water.'
"…Oberg was exceptionally good. She acheived standards in the surf that few women have in recent decades; excelled at a a sport than can be incredibly demanding physically and a sport that women have always put in the too-hard basket."
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