Elite Surfers Going by the Board in Southland

Beyond the sandy shores of Lower Trestles in San Clemente, the world’s top 44 wave riders and four wild-card entries are surfing their hearts out in the only top-tier pro surfing tour event held annually on the U.S. mainland.

And when the foam settles after the final sometime Monday afternoon, a Boost Mobile Pro winner will emerge, $30,000 richer and with his World Championship Tour standing and overall stature having vastly improved.

But if you’re thinking that will be one of our own, think again.

More likely, he will hail from Hawaii, Australia ... or even Florida.

Carlsbad’s Taylor Knox could rally in front of his family and friends. So could Laguna Beach resident Pat O’Connell, or Oxnard’s Tim Curran. But neither has won this year, and the first two, both aging veterans in their early 30s, have only one WCT victory between them -- a 1996 triumph by Knox in Brazil.

Curran, 26, who posted two WCT victories in 1999, has struggled since and is mired in a four-way tie for last place. Knox ranks 16th and O’Connell 19th.

Southern California fans’ best hope at Trestles might rest with either of two local wild-card participants, veterans Rob Machado and Shane Beschen, who are no longer on the WCT. Dane Reynolds, a rising star from Ventura, and Hawaii’s Bruce Irons are the other wild cards.

Meanwhile, Hawaii has Andy Irons at No. 1. Florida has Kelly Slater at No. 2. Australians are Nos. 3-5, then there are another Floridian, another Australian, another Floridian, another Australian and yet another Floridian rounding out the top 10.

All of which prompts a couple of questions:

* Why is Southern California, a region awash in quality surf and sunshine, where lifelong surfers number in the tens of thousands, so under-represented on the grandest of world stages?

* And what business does Florida -- with its notoriously lousy surf -- have outclassing Hawaii and Southern California?

There’s a simple answer to the second question. Kelly Slater, who is to surfing what Tiger Woods is to golf, happened along in the early 1990s and reeled off an unprecedented six world championships. Following in his wake were the Lopez brothers, Shea and Cory, and the flashy Hobgood twins, C.J. and Damien. Shea Lopez is the lowest-ranked of the bunch, but hardly a slouch at No. 15. C.J. Hobgood, the 2001 world champion, is No. 6.

As for California’s woes ...

The answer seems more complex. Many of Southern California’s most promising surfers, despite their considerable talent, no longer seem to have the drive and determination required to commit to the grueling World Qualifying Series circuit and ascend to the upper echelon as competitive athletes.

This, in part, is because there isn’t the structure there was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a domestic circuit was started and grew into what eventually became known as the Bud Surf Tour. The Bud Tour offered significant prize money and ultimately enabled surfers to build qualifying points without having to go abroad as much as they do now.

At one point there were the equivalent of three WCT events in California -- in Santa Cruz, Huntington Beach and Oceanside. Competitive surfing had a presence here. Aspiring pros had a theater in which to watch and operate. Santa Barbara’s Tom Curren was the Slater of the era and following in his wake were fellow Southland standouts such as Knox, Machado and Beschen.

The Bud Tour, however, became a victim of the recession of 1990-91, and only recently has the Foster’s Pro Surfing Tour, sponsored in large part by O’Neil Clothing in Irvine, begun evolving into something similar -- with the Honda Element U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach as its centerpiece event.

But that’s not necessarily a reason to tip one of those big blue cans in celebration.

Things are different today in the Southland, where the market is huge and where much of the industry is based.

Corporate sponsors, some anyway, have become less interested in tour results, as long as they’re getting exposure through magazine spreads, videos and advertising campaigns.

“Ideally, you want to sign an athlete who’s going to do well in the competitions, but also have charisma and some editorial pull with the magazines and be someone the kids are going to look up to -- to be the overall package,” says Adam Sharp, a marketing executive for Rip Curl, an Australian company with a base in Carlsbad. “But here in the U.S., a lot of the guys are not so event-driven. The [public] following of the tour is not as strong, and as a result, the companies are looking for other ways to fulfill their marketing strategies.”

Rip Curl sponsors four WCT athletes, all from Australia and two of whom -- Kieren Perrow and Mick Fanning -- are in the top five. Billabong has Andy Irons. Quiksilver, the presenting sponsor of the Boost Mobile Pro, has Slater and Paterson, who ranks 17th. So the bigger companies obviously still recognize the value of maintaining a strong presence on the WCT.

But where does the Southland figure into the mix?

Seeking more insight, we put the question to the surfers, of past and present, and their responses were enlightening and entertaining. A sampling:

* “You were hungrier back then. You scraped around and you really wanted to do well at contests, because you wanted to climb up the ratings and make prize money and that was a big deal. Back then, that’s how it was. You were either a competitive surfer or you really didn’t exist.”

That was Machado, 29, a 10-year tour veteran who finished second to Slater in 1995 and finished third in 2000, and has since positioned himself more comfortably.

“I’ve done my duty,” the proud new father proclaims.

Though he still competes in selected events, his lucrative contract no longer demands that he do well in contests.

“Just in the last couple of years, I started riding for Hurley, and they’re, like, ‘Hey, do whatever you want.’ I’m still competitive, but I’m on the other end now. I’ve got a [sponsor-paid exotic] boat trip coming up, and I’m OK with that.”

* “I’m all about the hunger, man. Some guys, if they’re good surfers and are photogenic, can make it that way, but that’s not my thing. I’m competitive.”

So says Andy Irons, 25, the more accomplished of the Irons brothers, the reigning world champion and leading in a close duel with Slater for this year’s title. He’s the next person most likely to gain Slater-like stature.

* “The good kids make a little bit of money, but they don’t have ridiculous six-figure contracts like the kids over here.”

That from Dean Morrison, 22, of Queensland, Australia. He’s a consistently smooth performer who says the attitudes and goals of surfers and corporate sponsors in his country are simply different from those here.

“It’s really humble back home,” he says. “If the kid’s good, they’re not going to blow him up and say he’s the next Slater. A lot of times, you hear about the new Kelly Slater coming out of California, guys like Bobby Martinez back when he was 14. They’re great surfers, but sometimes if you do believe that and you think you’ve already made it, that can get in the way of your surfing.”

Martinez, 21, currently ranks 20th on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ World Qualifying Series tour, and the Ventura surfer finally seems poised to crack the top 15 and qualify for the WCT. San Clemente’s Chris Ward, 25, is 21st on the WQS. Ventura’s Reynolds, who turns 18 on Sunday, will commit full time to the WQS in 2004.

* “Basically, Americans are going out on tour, and everywhere they go they’re a foreigner.”

Knox said that. He was one of the stars of the Bud Tour and, like O’Connell, has been a WCT mainstay and a lonely Southland representative with age slowly catching up to him.

At 32, he’s hopeful that corporate sponsors will realize the importance of growing the sport from the ground up and says the Foster’s Tour is a step in the right direction: “I think that if they had at least a couple of opportunities back on the home front, to get a couple of big results, there would be more young surfers willing to go through the [WQS] grind and try to make the WCT.”

* “Right now, the momentum is in Australia. When you get a whole pack of guys all doing well at the same time, they all do well. It was no different here when Curren inspired that next generation with Machado, Slater and Beschen.

“There was such a momentum behind American surfing, including Hawaiians in that description, that it was unstoppable. Now, even though Andy’s No. 1, it’s all Australians and Brazilians. There are as many Brazilians on the tour as Americans.”

Peter Townend, 50, among those responsible for the birth of pro surfing and winner of its first world championship in 1976, said that.

* “For a long time, there was a major hole in Gold Coast representation too. Since PT [Townend] and myself, there was only Munga Barry for, like, 20 years. The distractions of Gold Coast social life took its toll, but with [Parkinson], Mick Fanning and Dean Morrison coming along, the cyclical theory comes into play.

“With young guys like Bobby Martinez and the more seasoned Chris Ward pushing hard for qualification, the West is again on the brink of a solid WCT presence.”

That’s the opinion of Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, 48, the 1978 world champion. Like Townend, he’s a product of Australia’s Gold Coast and is the ASP president.

He adds that “the other cyclical factor from a U.S. perspective is the rise of the young Hawaiian brigade. There is a hugely talented crop coming through the islands again, and I see this as perpetuating a 10- to 15-year cycle.”

Time will tell.

*

Pete Thomas’ coverage will appear in the new Outdoor section beginning Tuesday.