After 55 years of writing about surfing contests, I never thought I’d be writing about the girls after finals day at big, perfect Pipe, and I certainly never thought that all the best photos accompanying my words would be of the girls, fearlessly ripping the bag out of it.
I’ll probably be labelled sexist after that intro, but it’s just the truth. Although a growing band of women, led by Aussie pioneers like Layne Beachley and Laura Enever, have been riding waves of consequence for many years, no women’s pro events had been held over the treacherous and life-claiming Pipeline reef system until 2021. And no group of women had ever performed on this thrillingly scary canvas like they owned it until a bunch of rookies claimed it last weekend.
Well, rookies and near rookies, our own Molly Picklum among them and showing the most fearless approach of all on a day when the perfectly smooth wave faces disguised the clear and present danger of being pile-driven into the reef. Steve Shearer summed it up best on Swellnet: “Of the eight women’s quarter-finalists, three wanted a piece of it: Pickles (Molly Picklum), Caity (Simmers), and BettyLou (Sakura Johnson). The rest dodged and fidgeted, handed over priority, and pretended to paddle … and that is no disrespect to them.”
Indeed it is no disrespect to the other five, Costa Rica’s Brisa Hennessy, reigning world champ Caroline Marks, Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb and Luana Silva, and France’s Johanne Defay, who surfed bravely to get as far as they did. Nor is it disrespectful to the men who fell short, notably reigning and two-time world champion Filipe Toledo, who has subsequently pulled out of the tour for the year, citing mental health issues.
To state the bleeding obvious, dropping into huge, seemingly bottomless barrels is not for the faint-hearted, nor is it everyone’s cup of tea. As the eventual women’s Pipe Pro champ Caity Simmers put it on her excited post-final jet ski to the beach interview: “I respect everyone who wants a part of it, and I respect everyone who doesn’t want a part of it because it’s freaky.”
But let’s get back to the three girls who went guts for glory all the way at Pipe last weekend and made surfing history. First, 18-year-old BettyLou, a North Shore local from Haleiwa who finished third after surfing the heat of the contest, equalling her best finish in 2023, her first full year on tour. Okay, no-one knows the terrain better than BettyLou, except maybe Moana Jones Wong, who made an early exit in a wave-starved heat. (And she would be my fourth in the group of girls making history.) But BettyLou also evokes the great Hawaiian stylemasters, from Gerry Lopez on up. Power and grace, which is what she used to dispatch world champ Caz Marks in her quarter, and progress to the heat for the ages.
Here BettyLou met Pickles, who had been on a fearless rampage of barrel hunting throughout the event, and was peaking. The 21-year-old from Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast finished fifth in the world last year, after being knocked out by Caity Simmers in the finals series, but earlier in her first full year on tour she showed she had the right stuff for the North Shore, winning the Hurley Pro at chunky Sunset Beach, where she is defending right now. The popular Aussie had one strategy for the Pipe event – find the barrel, going either way. While other competitors tended to pick a direction and stick to it, Pickles took each set as it came, and her backside attack was the equal of her front.
Meeting BettyLou in the semis was always going to be tough, local knowledge and style meets going for broke without fear of consequence. I watched this heat live and on replay a couple of times, and I still find it difficult to describe how amazingly good it was. This was what the highest level of competitive surfing should be all about, but so seldom is.
As my friend Steve Shearer put it: “The climax of The Pickles Show was her semi with Bettylou. It was hard to resist all the ‘historical’ claims coming from the booth but at a certain point the reality had to be acknowledged: this was the best women’s heat in pro surfing history.”
It was indeed. Halfway through, Pickles behind, Bettylou holding priority with a solid seven on her card. Molly prowls around under her opponent as a monster set looms. She has to sit late to see what BettyLou will do. Will she swing? No, it’s Pickles’ wave and she almost freefalls down the never-ending face, guiding her board into the concave backside wall of Pipe proper. And she disappears behind the foamball. And she’s still in there. And she pops out on the shoulder, a half-formed claim frozen in the moment. It’s a 10.
BettyLou never gives up, and she goes so close, but the semi is for Pickles.
Slightly anti-climactic as a squall sent onshore shudders through the lineup, the match of Pickles versus Caity Simmers, the tiny 18-year-old ranga from Oceanside, California who is ranked fourth in the world after 2023, her rookie year when she beat Pickles three times. Pickles has never beaten Caity, but by most informed opinions, these are the two best female surfers in the world right now, with Pickles getting the nod in big waves.
The girls are exhausted. The fight the ribs on the waves, now making tube rides more difficult but not impossible. Molly finds a beauty, a long-lined Backdoor beauty that she milks for a 9.27. One more and she’s got the grom. It doesn’t come, and Caity backs up a 8.83 with a near four. Pickles only needs a four and it never comes.
What a day! I’m exhausted just writing about it! Oh, and Barron Mamiya beat John John Florence with a perfect 10 in a North Shore local derby final, but who cares? Only kidding, the men will be back.
