In terms of its dramatic effect on the WSL tour, the reintroduction of the mid-season cut has been an outstanding success.
In the modern world of streaming platforms, I have no idea how you quantify that success in eyeballs viewing (no doubt others do) but if I may regress to a previous century when network television was a thing, I bet it’s rating its butt off! In human terms, however, some of the tragedies that play out as careers are smashed just as they are starting, and legends bow out not quite the way they would have anticipated, it’s almost unbearable to watch.
Okay, I’ll fess up. When the cameras caught Macy Callaghan tearing up and having to turn away during her post-heat interview after bowing out at the Margaret River Pro, I was doing the same on my lounge at Munna Point. Which is why, as I commemorate the fallen on the distant beaches of Prevelly on this Anzac Day eve, with the Margie’s Pro now on hold for finals day, but the damage already done, I want to start not with the GOAT but with the girls.
Our local girls, Sophie McCulloch and Isabella Nichols, Sophie from Alex way, Bella from Coolum and both USC graduates, have had to deal with cruel twists of fate in their short time on the big tour. Sophie, 24, shocked the world when she surfed out of her skin to win the final Challenger Series event at Haleiwa, Hawaii, last December to catapult her into the 2023 championship tour. But just a week or two later, shades of Burleigh’s Liam O’Brien the previous year, she tore her anterior talofibular ligament messing around in small waves at Snapper Rocks, requiring surgery and forcing her to miss the first two events of ’23 in Hawaii. With only five events before the mid-season cut, Sophie was up against it from the start, but she muscled out a fifth at Bells and was in with a chance if she could repeat or better that at Margaret River. She finished ninth, and bravely went back to the drawing board, which is the first Challenger at Snapper in a couple of weeks.
Bella, 25, scraped through her second year on tour in 2022 with an unlikely but thoroughly deserved win at Margaret River to beat the cut and register her only CT win so far. But boy, she looks the goods, another Steph in the making. This year, however, an audacious third at Bells was not enough to save her when she bowed out early at Margies.
NSW Central Coaster Macy Callaghan showed her true colours with an impressive third in Portugal earlier this year, but needed a solid result at Margies to make the cut, and it wasn’t to be when prodigy Caitlin Simmers, who kept her out of the final in Portugal, repeated the dose in WA.
Tour veteran Sally Fitzgibbons has looked in career-best form – or at least her best since 2011 when she clocked three WCT wins and finished runner-up to Carissa Moore for the world title – but the results have somehow eluded the ubiquitous Sal, probably the best-known face of surfing in Australia. She went to WA needing a big result to stay on tour, and looked like she was going to get it, until Caroline Marks took her down in the afternoon chop.
The other girls will be at Snapper revitalized and ready to requalify through the Challenger Series. Sally, at 32, I’m not so sure. But she could do it, and I hope she does.
In the men’s draw there is, of course, no bigger story than Kelly Slater’s demise, predicted (not so bravely) in this column last week. After some lacklustre performances so far this year, amidst claims of lingering injuries etc etc, the 51-year-old went into Margaret River needing a miracle, and, like Sally, he nearly pulled it off. I haven’t seen the GOAT surf this well with the jersey on since he broke all records by winning at Pipe last year.
Okay, I’m the fan from hell. For me the foam climbs and the 360-degree cuttie never get old, even though Kelly and I do. I’ve been lucky enough to watch him pull that stuff off from in the lineup and the channel at some of the best breaks in the world, and I’d love to see him keep doing it on my TV screen for another decade or so. But it ain’t gonna happen. The judges have grown too young to appreciate what we know is timeless genius.
If anyone had to whack the GOAT I’m glad it was Liam O’Brien who looks like a member of an ‘80s boy band from around the time Kelly hit the radar. So it was appropriate, but it was brutal. Typically, Kelly hasn’t called time yet, and if Snapper is pumping like it has been this week, he might even surf the Challenger. But let’s not kid ourselves, it’s over.
On the other hand, it’s far from over for Newcastle’s Jackson Baker, who might have to start over at Snapper but is, for my money, the brightest ray of sunshine to emerge in the first half of tour ’23. Are there better surfers than him on tour? Well, yeah. At least 22 as it turns out. But does anyone put more heart and soul into every wave ridden? No.
A people’s pro turns up every couple of years. Think Matty Wilko, or Wade Carmichael. But J-Bakes could well be Matt Hoy’s illegitimate son, at last revealed. The guy’s a gem, I’m going to follow his progress on the Challenger and can’t wait to see him back on the big tour.
FOOTNOTE: Noosa locals have been smashing the rest all over the place these past couple of weeks, with some outstanding performances in open and age divisions on both short and longboard. Full report with pics next week.
