Identifying the Major Dudes in County Surfing History

Who is the greatest surfer in Orange County history?

The question seems easy enough. After all, plenty of surfing history has been made on the coast of this county.

Duke Kahanamoku, the original beach boy, surfed Big Corona early this century with Orange County’s prodigal waterman, Lorrin “Whitey” Harrison. Hobie Alter, an excellent surfer himself, opened the world’s first surf shop in Dana Point in the 1950s. The mainland’s only major surfing contest is held every summer in Huntington Beach, a.k.a. Surf City.

But the county’s rich past only makes it more difficult to pick a winner. There’s no consensus choice and no shortage of candidates.

Still, pick we must. So we’d like to give you a chance to share your thoughts on the subject. Call us at (714) 966-5853, fax us at (714) 966-5663 or e-mail us at martin.beck@latimes.com.

The argument is an interesting one. Surfing at its purest can be considered an art form, and therefore ranking surfers will always be subjective.

“There’s no stopwatch in surfing,” said Allan Seymour, a longtime surf event promoter and the “King of T-Street” in the ‘50s, “so it’s judgmental, totally judgmental. One can say so-and-so was the best and another guy can say it was someone completely different.”

World championships are a good measuring stick, but it doesn’t help our effort because no Orange County surfer has ever won the world championship.

Australian Peter Townend, who won the first Assn. of Surfing Professionals title in 1976, now lives in Huntington Beach, but that doesn’t count. We’re looking for someone who spent his or her formative or competitive years in Orange County.

That rules out four-time world champion Tom Curren, who lived in Newport Beach when he was very young and surfed his first wave in Huntington but honed his smooth style in Santa Barbara.

We’d like to claim Phil Edwards, who revolutionized the sport in the 1950s with his hot-dogging style, but he moved to South Orange County from Oceanside only after his surfing heyday.

Actual candidates come from two camps: old-timers and youngsters. It’s tempting to give in to nostalgia and go with someone who surfed before the sport was an industry. But let’s not rule out outstanding current or recent professionals from the county.

San Clemente’s Shane Beschen is a tremendous aerial performer and was ranked as high as second in the world in 1996. Brad Gerlach, a Huntington Beach High graduate, also was ranked second in the world in the early part of the decade. Laguna Beach’s Jeff Booth had a long, productive career and was ranked in the top five in the world.

But Chris Mauro, senior editor of Surfer magazine in San Clemente, says San Clemente’s Matt Archbold deserves credit for inspiring a generation of surf acrobats.

“He started something that’s just gone completely berserk--the whole aerial thing in Orange County,” said Mauro, who like Archbold grew up surfing T-Street in San Clemente.

Archbold, who dropped out of school after the ninth grade and turned professional, never lived up to his potential in competition but still has a cult following among young surfers. Beschen, currently 25th in the ASP rankings, idolized Archbold, Mauro said.

“He should have been Orange County’s world champion and done it multiple times over,” Mauro said of Archbold.

The county did have champions in surfing’s formative years. Joyce Hoffman of Capistrano Beach won a handful of U.S. titles during the 1960s and is considered one of the best female surfers of all time.

Then there is Corky Carroll, a longtime Huntington Beach resident who is no doubt the most famous surfer from Orange County.

Carroll, who runs a popular surfing school at Bolsa Chica State Beach, was a fierce competitor who won numerous events during the ‘60s and early ‘70s. He lists five U.S. championships on his resume and in 1968 was voted the best surfer in the world by readers of Surfer magazine. Carroll later parlayed his fame into a series of beer commercials.

But Carroll isn’t a slam-dunk choice. Many longtime surfers say David Nuuhiwa, who moved to Huntington Beach from Hawaii when he was about 14, had no equal. He won U.S. championships in 1968 and 1970, but that is almost beside the point.

“Nuuhiwa was like Nureyev,” said Steve Pezman, publisher of San Clemente-based Surfer’s Journal. “He was so great that when he went out in the water people would paddle in just to watch him surf.”

Nuuhiwa was probably the best nose-rider ever, Pezman said, but he was also well-rounded, introducing floaters that no one on the mainland had seen before.

Pezman and several other longtime surfers insist Nuuhiwa should be the pick. Pezman said younger observers who discount Nuuhiwa’s skill didn’t see him surf during his prime.

“All those young guys are certainly people who have been significant in recent surfing,” Pezman said, “but David Nuuhiwa was thought of as the best in the world by a quantum leap.”

Mauro suggested San Clemente’s Herbie Fletcher as a candidate because of his sustained excellence. Fletcher, now in his 50s, has been a world-class surfer for 30 years. He also produces surf films, developed Astrodeck, a neoprene surfboard grip that aids aerobatics, and is the father of two top pro surfers, Christian and Nathan Fletcher.

Pezman said he seriously considered Fletcher, but “I still think I’d have to pick Nuuhiwa because of the heights that David reached above everyone else.”

Mauro argued for Fletcher. “He totally rips and he’s always ripped,” Mauro said this week by cell phone while driving to LAX for a flight to Hawaii. “I’m going over to the North Shore today and he’ll probably be dropping in on me tomorrow.”

WAITING GAME

The second event of the Triple Crown of Surfing, the Rip Curl Cup, is expected to start Friday at Sunset Beach on Oahu.

The event, and the women’s Quiksilver Roxy Pro, has been postponed six days because of poor surf, but must be completed by next Wednesday.

Shea and Cory Lopez of San Clemente, ranked 13th and 18th on the World Championship Tour; Beschen (ranked 25th) and Laguna Niguel’s Pat O’Connell (26th) are trying to improve their rankings in the second-to-last event of the season. Australian Mark Occhilupo has clinched the world title.

The season-ending Gerry Lopez Pipe Masters at Banzai Pipeline will take place between Dec. 9 and 21 depending on wave conditions.