New Rules Will Knock Some Pros Right Out of the Water

Yes, Christmas is almost here. Yes, the Christmas tree is trimmed with surf wax. But what really signals the end of the year is the Hawaiian Triple Crown of surfing.

which is almost/now over, (INFO COMING 12/15 or 12/16).

Fig: It’s been a year of big changes for the world of big surfing, with new formats and seedings going on.

Fig and I wanted to sit down and try and explain this year’s tour ratings and next year’s selection process.

Yeah, essentially, it’s a list of who’s hot and who might not.

The Wyland Galleries Pro was won by Sunny Garcia of Hawaii. Pipeline Masters was won by Kelly Slater of Florida, who smashed everyone on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals (ASP) tour and became No. 1 by more than 1,000 points. xxxx of xxx won (We shud get some info on this by early nxt week)the Hard Rock contest at (size of waves)Sunset Beach.

Fig says the hot story for the Masters was Sunny Garcia.

Sunny busted one of his favorite boards in the semis, and in the final went over the falls, landed on his board head-first and almost got knocked out. He had to leave. End of story. He wanted to go back in, but the lifeguards wouldn’t let him ‘cause he was dazed. Contest results: Slater, $14,000; Garcia, $5,500.

Huntington Beach surf fans may remember Garcia from the 1987 OP Pro Surfing Championships. He was only 17 years old then and unseeded. He entered the contest as a “trialist.” Without a top seeding, the guy had to fight among the rest of the pack.

And Garcia made OP history by making it to the finals as an unseeded trialist but got picked off by Barton Lynch of Australia.

Fig, are you ready to explain the selection process?

Yeah, let’s do it!

This year, the top 16 ASP pro surfers are the only guys who will be invited back for the ASP world tour in 1993. Last year, everybody who was No. 17 on down to like No. 60 were always welcomed back for the following year. Well, NO MORE! They’re just bumped right off the roster.

How they gonna make money, Fig?

Dunno. But it’ll be hard. Joining the top 16 will be the top 28 surfers from the World Qualifying Series, a group of contests held specifically as a ratings race but also, at times, in conjunction with the U.S. Bud Pro Tour and other events. That’s about 44 surfers and several wild-card entries who will be named later.

Keep in mind that the Bud Pro Tour is in the United States, and ASP events are worldwide.

The new ratings are pretty scary for some people getting cut from the top picture, and there are some pretty big names involved.

Like who?

Like maybe Tommy Curren (former three-time world champ), Hawaiians Derek Ho and Marty Thomas, and Brad Gerlach from the United States. You’ve got your changin’ of the guard right there--a lot of former top 16 guys out. But maybe Curren will make it as a wild card.

But the good news is that Orange County is well represented. Unofficially, from the World Qualifying Series top 28 rankings a week ago, it looks like San Clemente’s Shane Beschen, the 1992 U.S. Bud Pro Tour champion; Richie Collins and Todd Miller, both of Newport Beach; Jeff Booth of Laguna Beach, and Mike Parsons of San Clemente all made the tour.

Others from the United States include Slater, Rob Machado of Encinitas, “Downtown” Chris Brown of Santa Barbara, Todd Holland of Florida, Joey Jenkins of North Hollywood and Taylor Knox of Carlsbad. Dino Andino of San Clemente was 29th but is included because some top surfers such as Sunny Garcia made the tour on both rosters.

Fear not, competition lovers. Fig says the first U.S. Bud Pro Tour event for 1993 is scheduled for Jan. 14 through 18 in Santa Cruz. For those who can’t wait that long, the Eddie Aikau Memorial surfing contest at Waimea Bay is expected sometime in late December. But that’s held only if waves get 20-foot-plus! Fig says that’s the requirement.

Diplomats: Twelve youths from Orange and San Diego counties left Monday for Vietnam. The trip, sponsored in part by Kalos Kagathos Foundation and Bruce Hopping of Laguna Beach, is being touted as a diplomatic mission to introduce surfing to Vietnamese youngsters. They plan to surf China Beach, near Da Nang, before they return Jan. 1.

Tidbits: Hawaiian surfer Jeff Hakman was seen at Huntington Surf and Sport shop, in the back sitting at the Legend health-food bar. Hakman was one of the big-name ‘70s surfers who earned a reputation at Sunset Beach. Yo, Jeff, if you were shopping, I wear a size XL in a shirt, and my favorite color is blue.

Rockin’ Fig is Rick Fignetti, a Huntington Beach surfer/shop owner. Times staff writer David Reyes has reported on U.S. surf teams competing in Bali and Brazil.