LOCALS ONLY : Meet Five of the Best Southern California Women : on the Pro Surfing Tour

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS, take heart.

One South African and an Australian or two might be closing in on three-time world champ Frieda Zamba, but five of our own are right there in the scramble for the women’s world surfing title.

Four world events--and three wins for Wendy Botha of South Africa--have opened the field to the challengers, and, say the Californians, sharpened their own hopes for a winning 1987-88 season.

“The competition is much stronger this year,” says Jorja Smith of San Clemente, currently the sixth-ranked woman on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ world tour. “There’s no one out there that’s unbeatable, so we’re all working harder.”

Recently, the top five Californians--whose world standings after four events range from 10th to fourth place--gathered in Malibu for a national meet put on by the Professional Surfing Assn. of America. Because this year’s PSAA schedule conflicted with the world tour, the women had missed several PSAA events, and most went to Malibu to enjoy the prime conditions rather than to compete for the national title.

On the kind of late summer day that Malibu is famous for--sunny and 75 degrees with four- to six-foot waves--they took time out to talk about themselves and their goals in a male-dominated sport.

All five are quintessential Southern Californians, golden brown, athletic, easygoing. They are all friends. Two are twin sisters. They are all, they mention casually, Virgos. They are also confident and disciplined perfectionists.

Kim Mearig, 24, of Carpinteria, has already won the women’s world surfing title once, in 1983--her second professional year. Known for her graceful style, she was recently described by Peter Townend, the 1976 men’s world champion who coached her as an amateur, as “a complete natural--the first girl who surfed like a man with the grace of a woman. She took the world by storm.”

Finishing second in 1984 to Zamba, Mearig then had what she calls “a two-year slump,” taking sixth in ’85 and ’86. This year she has gotten back “a craze for winning,” which has put her, for now, in fourth place.

Mearig grew up in Santa Barbara, and her mother, Lois, recalls that when Kim was 12, she “got on a board and surfed her first wave clear to the beach.”

In the National Scholastic Surfing Assn., one of the country’s largest amateur surfing organizations, Mearig quickly became a star, winning the championship in 1982.

Around the same time, she met her husband, self-described “surf addict” Brian Gruetzmacher, now 27. “I had called in sick from work; she’d played hooky from school,” Gruetzmacher remembers. “We ended up surfing the same peak. I fell in love that day.”

While her first pro year was disappointing (she finished 18th), her world victory the next year made up for it. Suddenly she had solid sponsorship, with Ocean Pacific Sunwear joining Victory Wetsuits and Channel Island surf boards to provide enough financial backing for her to tour and train year-round.

Ironically, she sees her trademark graceful style as a partial liability, given “the way women are being judged now. The one who surfs most like a man wins,” she explains.

To add aggressiveness to her grace, she trains four to six hours a day, often with her husband, who videotapes these sessions for study later.Occasionally, she considers retirement--”being a rep for my wet-suit sponsor, staying at home, having a family.”

But at the moment, these thoughts are rare. “It’s such an interesting year,” she muses. “The odds are stacking up against Wendy (Botha). Isn’t that the law of probability?”

Tricia Gill, 22, of Leucadia and Newport Beach, has had perhaps more reason than anyone to pray for Wendy Botha’s luck to change. In the first women’s contest of the year, the July Stubbies Pro USA in Oceanside, Gill lost to Botha by one point, which Gill believes should have been hers.

Nevertheless, Gill, who finished her ’84 pro debut in 13th place, has progressed steadily through the ranks--to No. 8 in ’85 and No. 7 in ’86. Last month she finished the fourth event of the season, the Marui Pro in Chiba, Japan, rated fifth. Gill is known for her aggressive style. Debbie Beacham, the 1982 women’s world champion who sometimes coaches Gill, has called this style “very smooth and very explosive.”

The same words fit Gill herself. In pastel clothes provided by sponsor Town & Country, with the added touches of pearls, a gold cross and Bolle shades on a turquoise string, Gill is the picture of smooth. When she opens her mouth, passion rages amid the surf lingo. She is “stoked,” “amped out.”

Gill started surfing by taking lessons through the Newport Beach Department of Parks and Recreation. “She was a real individualist,” her mother recalls, “one of the first girls to play Little League. And once she got on a board, she was at one with the world.”

At 13, she abandoned thoughts of becoming a nurse to surf full-time, a dedication that so interfered with school that she barely squeaked through Newport Harbor High. After two months at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa (“Why, I don’t know,” Gill says), she dropped out, traveled to Hawaii and later placed second in the Women’s World Amateur Contest at Huntington Beach. “After that,” she says dryly, “it seemed pointless to stay amateur.”

This year, for the first time, she is comfortable financially, thanks primarily to Town & Country and Hotline Wetsuits.

She loves the camaraderie of touring. “I know,” she sighs, “you’re not supposed to talk to your competitors. It kills the killer instinct. But it’s so neat, all of us sleeping in the airport, looking so bad together . . . .”

On rare days, she gets “completely bugged” by what she loves most--surfing. “Today, for instance,” she says. “I just got off the plane from France. I cannot be bothered with another contest.”

Yet she trains daily for four-hour stretches, watches videos of two-time men’s champion Tom Curren and constantly thinks about “maneuvers I might try.”

Dating, she says, is “definitely not in my program. I pass out after dinner. Guys think I’m a drip. But I’m practicing 100% more just to stay in the top ranks.”

As she gathers her gear to leave the Malibu beach, a young man in a Bud T-shirt calls out to her.

“You won Stubbies,” he shouts matter-of-factly. “You blew everyone away. You ripped. You were killer. Believe me, it was yours.”

Jolene and Jorja Smith, 22, of San Clemente, have been called the Twins as long as they can remember.

“Hel-lo, blondies!” men cry again and again as Jolene steers their ’66 Mustang through Malibu.

As surfing pros, the Twins are not quite a matched set. In 1985, Jorja was named the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ Rookie of the Year for her fifth-place tour finish. She moved to fourth in ’86 and is rated sixth at this point. Jolene, who sometimes bested Jorja as an amateur (reaching the top rank of the National Scholastic Surfing Assn. team, for instance, when Jorja was No. 2), has had two 10th-place finishes as a pro and is currently rated 10th. Being out of the top eight, Jolene must surf through trial heats in order to qualify for tour events.

“I’d like to be more consistent,” she concedes.

“We’d both like to place higher,” Jorja finishes.

The Twins exchange a rueful glance, and Jorja voices a shared thought. “We’re getting serious about training. Compared to other girls, we’re lazy. But three wins by one person, it’s sinking in. Get on the ball!”

The Twins chose their profession almost without thinking. “We’ve been in the water since we were born,” says Jolene.

Their mother worked for years at Surfing magazine. Their father is a longtime surfer. But it was their brother Arnie, 27, the sisters say, who encouraged them 10 years ago to trade their boogie boards for surf boards.

Wearing look-alike sportswear by their sponsor, Hobie Apparel, and carrying identical Hobie boards, the Twins speak almost entirely as “we,” finishing each other’s sentences and consulting each other for facts.

They have always, they agree, surfed primarily for fun, whether on the surf team at San Clemente High or in Australia on the pro tour. They train together three or four hours a day and “push each other,” Jorja says, “which is how we progress.”

Both, for the moment, feel blessed by what they’re doing.

“A lot of our friends,” says Jorja, “are in school or they work as waitresses.”

“And here we are,” Jolene says, “in France and Japan . . . .”

“Sightseeing,” Jorja adds.

“And of course,” Jolene finishes, excitement showing through her kick-back style, “there’s always the next contest.”

Alisa Schwarzstein, 23, of Laguna Beach, began her surfing career at age 11 on a $10 surfboard from a seaside junk shop. On her first confident paddle out, she was slammed by a wave and broke a tooth, which made her face swell “like Bugs Bunny’s.” Though the board was back in the shop the next day and Schwarzstein’s parents ordered her to forget the sport, only a few months passed before she had cadged their permission to take surfing lessons.

“She’s fearless,” says her best friend, Kim Mearig, watching Schwarzstein surf at Malibu. “She’s not afraid of being hurt. She’s got a fierce desire to win. Some of us,” Mearig jokes, “would rather survive.”

Aggressiveness, raw power and single-mindedness are Schwarzstein’s hallmarks, agrees Carl Wieser, OP’s sports team manager, who has judged her in pro events. “She knows exactly what wins,” he says.

Currently ranked seventh on the tour, Schwarzstein has improved with every outing this year. She attributes her progress to “a drive I have. I don’t see myself as a No. 8 surfer (her rank as she entered the season).”

A four-time amateur champion, Schwarzstein won the 1980 women’s world amateur title and was the ASP Rookie of the Year for her eighth-place pro debut. She finished fourth in ’85 and eighth in ’86. She finished second in the PSAA pro tour.

Like many of her competitors, Schwarzstein characterizes surfing as “a very subjective sport, dependent on a lot of things--like the weather and who catches the best wave--that you can’t always control.” She trains five hours a day and rides a mountain bike another hour daily to build her strength.

While she emphasizes that “to me, it’s not a chore. I love it,” her particularly serious view of life sets her apart from the other Californians. She is the only one to have finished college, attending UCLA on surfing scholarships (from the NSSA) and a Laguna Arts Festival scholarship (for her talent in ceramics). She graduated in 1986 with a sociology degree.

Some day, she might go back to ceramics, pursue a longtime interest in the stock market or start her own clothing business. For now, to supplement contest winnings and support from sponsors such as O’Neill wet suits, Sunset Beach clothing and Aloe Up suntan products, she does office work for the surfers’ association in Huntington Beach. She also helps with special projects for Action Sports Retailer and Outdoor Retailer magazines in South Laguna and judges local amateur and pro surfing events.

Though she loves traveling, she sometimes tires of the tour.

Still, the compensations are many. “I’ll be out in the water at sunset,” she reflects. “I’m alone but not lonely, watching the dolphins surf the waves, hearing the gulls.”

Schwarzstein, along with the other California competitors, does note a persistent image problem for women in the sport. Because women surfers get less media attention, sponsorship is harder to come by. Until very recently, Schwarzstein says, much of the scant publicity the women got tended to focus on their figures, with photographers trying to coax them into sexy poses.

Feeling “trivialized” by coverage that “has nothing to do with surfing,” Schwarzstein concedes that “it’s hard. “To some extent, girls in bathing suits are what sells.”

But she believes also that “what we do out there is what counts. To go out and face the unknown and be able to make it. To win. That’s accomplishment,” she says. “That’s what we’re all working for.”