Stars Missing From Op Pro Galaxy : Surfing: Format changes contribute to absence of many top performers this year.

For the past decade, the Op Pro surfing championships have attracted the top competitors on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ world tour to the Huntington Beach Pier.

But where will some of the top names be this year?

Tom Curren likely will be at home in France instead of at the 11th Op Pro, scheduled for June 23-28.

Defending Op champion Barton Lynch will be in Australia. So will former world champions Tom Carroll and Damien Hardman.

Brad Gerlach, Rob Bain, Michael and Derek Ho and Cheyne Horan also won’t compete.

Frieda Zamba, the four-time Op women’s champion, will be in Florida. Also missing will be former world champion Wendy Botha, Lisa Andersen and Nea Post.

“The story this year isn’t who is coming to the Op,” said Ian Cairns, who designed the contest’s original format in 1982. “The story is who isn’t coming.”

Many of the top pros are bypassing this year’s contest after Op dropped its traditional men’s and women’s individual champions in favor of a team versus team format. The only individual championship will be decided in the junior division.

Only 30 surfers will compete--six teams consisting of five surfers each. More than 160 surfers were in last year’s individual event, which drew 50,000 spectators for the final day.

The new Op format will feature:

--Men’s singles and doubles, women’s singles, mixed doubles and a tag team event, with each competitor scoring points for his or her team.

--The “fin bin,” similar to hockey’s penalty box, where surfers serve time for infractions such as paddling or interference.

--A Davis Cup-style format, where teams are organized by countries: United States, Brazil, Australia, Europe-Africa and Japan. Hawaii also will have a team.

With the format change, the Op is no longer part of the world tour point standings, leaving two Hawaii events as the only U.S. stops on the tour.

“It’s not like Op has a responsibility to hold an event every year,” said Mike Balzer, public relations director with the Bud Pro Surfing tour. “But it has been such a great event in the past, it’s sad to see them change it.”

The switch comes at a difficult time for Op and the rest of the surfing industry. Op began reorganizing last week after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Other surf-wear companies have dropped world tour stops at Oceanside and Santa Cruz in the past two years.

“It’s strange,” Balzer said, “that at a time when surfing is struggling, Op goes off and does its own thing. It’s a bummer.

“Many of the surfers are saying, ‘Why should I show up? I don’t get any (tour) points.’ Why should they fly all that way just to go to Huntington Beach? I don’t like Huntington Beach, and I live in Southern California.”

Said Cairns: “What’s the last thing Op needs right now? A flop. And that’s what they’ll have. They made a huge error. The key surfers on the world tour won’t be there. The Southern California fans are knowledgeable, and when they find out the surfers they have watched for years won’t be there, they’ll feel cheated.”

Joe Adams, contest coordinator, said he has heard only one complaint about the format change.

“Historically, anytime you try to do something different, people will criticize it at first,” Adams said. “The priority buoy was a perfect example. People complained about that when it was introduced (at the Op in the early 1980s).

“After 10 years of having this competition, we felt this was just another step along the way.”

Adams said the new format “will be a real crowd-pleaser.”

“We have a lot of talent here,” he said. “We have some former world champions and a U.S. champion. I don’t think this event will be boring in any way, shape or form.”

Adams said Op began working on the new format last fall. Op officials presented the format to the ASP tour officials, who invited the surfers.

“We were thinking of a way to make it more exciting,” he said. “We saw the tag team events before in Australia. And we mirrored that with individual and doubles competitions.”

The six-day event will be one day shorter than in the past, starting on a Tuesday with the junior competition. The team event will last from Wednesday through Sunday.

“With the old format, the huge crowds came out on the weekend, when there were only four guys left in event,” Adams said. “This format will be better. Fans will see the same team regularly through the week, and then find out if they are in the finals. It’s easier to follow.”

This will be the first year that Curren has not competed at the Op Pro. He has never been wild about surfing at Huntington Beach, especially with the large crowds and media demands. But his absence this year is mainly because of economic reasons.

Op dropped its sponsorship of the three-time world champion over the winter after he competed without sponsor logos on his board.

Curren recently signed a five-year contract with Rip Curl worth a reported $2 million.

Curren, a Santa Barbara native, emerged as a star by winning the Op in 1983 and ’84. The contest was a springboard for several other young Californians who didn’t travel regularly on the world tour.

Last year’s surprise standout was Laguna Niguel’s Pat O’Connell, who upset former world champions Carroll and Hardman on the way to a fifth-place finish.

“The whole tour is Australian,” said O’Connell, who’s not competing at this year’s Op. “There are so many great American surfers who can’t go on the whole tour. The Op was our chance to see how we stacked up with the Australians and Brazilians.”

Several other local surfers, all Op regulars, will sit out this year, including Huntington Beach’s Noah Budroe and Gary Clisby, San Clemente’s Dino Andino, Shane Beschen and Matt Archbold, and Laguna Niguel’s Vinnie de la Pena.

O’Connell said he will miss the old Op format. He was a regular at the event, both as a spectator and competitor.

“When you’re a kid growing up around here you go to the Op and watch top guys go through their heats,” O’Connell said. “People come from around the world not for the waves or for the money. It’s prestige. It’s like Wimbledon is to tennis.

“Now there’s no world tour points, no champion, no drama to it anymore. I don’t even know if people can understand how the scoring system works.”

Adams said the event announcers will keep track of the team scoring through a computerized judging system, similar to the one the event used for the individual heats.

“It will be important for the announcers to stay on it,” he said. “The computers will calculate the scores, and the announcers will split up and each keep track of three teams each.”

But Cairns isn’t sure if the fans will like the new format.

“Surfing just isn’t a team sport,” he said. “I’ve seen dozens of these team events through the years and they come and go. This is a gamble.”

The team rosters for the Op Pro:

Australia--Pam Burridge, Gary Elkerton, Richard Marsh, Shane Powell, Glen Winton.

Brazil--Andrea Lopes, Flavio Padaratz, Amaury Pereira, Victor Ribas, Renan Rocha.

Europe-Africa--Kay Holt, David Malherbe, Martin Potter, Noel Rahme, Justin Strong.

Hawaii--Sunny Garcia, Rochelle Gordines, Hans Hedemann, Kaipo Jaquias, Marty Thomas.

Japan--Yasuko Kamitaki, Shuji Kasuya, Takao Kuga, Takayuki Fukuchi, Naohisa Ogawa.

United States--Richie Collins (Newport Beach), Todd Holland (Cocoa Beach, Fla.), Mike Parsons (San Clemente), Alisa Schwarzstein (Laguna Beach), Kelly Slater (Cocoa Beach, Fla.).