Florida Teen Is Boy Wonder of the Waves : Surfing: Kelly Slater is 18, but he’s giving the veterans a run for their money at a surf meet in San Clemente.

Kelly Slater, who is still looking forward to his senior year of high school, has been a professional surfer for all of two weeks.

So why is everybody pegging this 18-year-old kid as a future world champion?

“He’s the great white hope of the U.S.,” said Carl Wieser, a veteran Assn. of Surfing Professionals judge who helps decide who will be world champion. “He’s the natural.”

Even fast-rising 17-year-old amateur Danny Melhado, who moved to San Clemente last year but grew up surfing with Slater in Florida, will grudgingly give this much to his friend and rival: “I’m not as high on him as some people, because I’ve been surfing next to him since we were little kids, but, yeah, he’s definitely world champion material.”

Slater’s eye-catching combination of fluidity and power carried him to his fourth consecutive victory Friday and into the first round of today’s main event (matching the top 32 seeds and the 32 remaining trialists) of the Body Glove San Clemente Surf meet.

Slater, who is competing in his second professional event, is the lowest-ranked remaining qualifier. Huntington Beach’s Noah Budroe, a veteran who missed the entry deadline and had to surf through the qualifying heats as an alternate, is the top-ranked trialist.

Professional Surfing Assn. of America heats pit highest-remaining seeds against lowest-remaining seeds, so Slater and Budroe, the No. 7 surfer on the PSAA rankings, keep ending up in the water at the same time. Thursday, Slater edged Budroe, but both advanced because two surfers in each four-man heat advance.

Friday, Budroe finished second again, but this time the rookie blew him out of the water.

Slater, making the most of an inconsistent one- to two-foot southwest swell, gouged his way through a series of turns and cutbacks on one very mediocre wave and earned one 9.5 and two 9s (out of a possible 10) on three of the five judges’ cards.

Today, Slater and Budroe will meet again in the first round of the main event, but Santa Barbara’s Chris Brown, the top-ranked surfer in the PSAA, will also be in heat No. 8, which begins this morning around 9:20 on the north side of the San Clemente Pier.

And many observers seem to think Slater is the favorite .

In his first professional contest, Slater lost to defending world champion Martin Potter in the second round of the main event. Slater took an early lead, but Potter’s experience paid off in the end.

“It was fun,” Slater said. “My whole amateur career, I’ve been the favorite. This time, I was the underdog. I won six heats and then lost to the world champ.”

Was the meeting with Potter a changing of the guard? Was it the debut of surfing’s new wave?

Slater, an articulate and soft-spoken young man from Cocoa Beach, Fla., shrugs and tries to concentrate on deciding which products to endorse . . . and how to best invest the proceeds of the six-figure contract a host of potential sponsors would love him to sign. (“I’m still shopping,” he said.)

“All the talk does put a little pressure on me, but all I can do is take it one heat at a time,” he said. “I don’t think it enters my mind in the water.”

He might be making more than your attorney by the end of the year, but Slater will be returning to Cocoa Beach High School next September.

“I could surf more if I weren’t in school and the waves aren’t as good in Florida,” he said, “but I’ve got a 3.3 GPA and I don’t want to be known as just another surfer dropout.”

There doesn’t seem to be much chance of that.

Surf Notes

Kasey Curtis, of San Juan Capistrano, tore ligaments in his knee two months ago while in Japan for the World Amateur Championships, but he advanced to today’s main event thanks to a knee brace. “It works great,” he said. “It took me about a week to get used to it, but now it’s sort of a confidence-builder.” Curtis, who was an alternate on the U.S. team competing in Japan, didn’t get to surf in the meet, but “I did get to tear up my knee.” He was doing a floater on a small wave and slipped off during the re-entry into shallow water.... Curtis is one of five amateurs who advanced to the main event, a list that included Huntington Beach’s Mark Austin and San Clemente’s Danny Melhado, a recent transplant from Indialantic, Fla. “I get homesick,” Melhado said, “but I don’t get homesick for the waves.”... Other Orange County surfers advancing to today’s competition were Matt Archbold and Craig Melia of San Clemente; Donavon Frankenreither of Mission Viejo; Dan Kennedy of South Laguna; Joey Zintel of Huntington Beach; Chris Billy of Dana Point; David Giddings of Corona Del Mar, and Brian McNulty of Capistrano Beach.