August 9: WSL to run “mixed-doubles” contest starring Kelly Slater, Caroline Marks, Toledo etc at Desert Ghetto; promises “one afternoon of perfectly-groomed rippage!”

No spectators, remote judging…

On August nine, sixteen WSL surfers, men, women, are gonna bring pro surfing kicking and jerking back to Lemoore in Central California. 

I don’t have a lot of affection for Surf Ranch events, who does I suppose, although that forty-second tube section does allow my Japanese houseboy to serve cocktails and I always have enjoyed watching Caroline Marks’ cut-throat savagery there.

Format is thus,

Eight teams of two, one man, one woman.

Each team is “determined by a blind draw as performed by the WSL Tours and Competition office.”

The Rumble, as it’s called, starts with a quarterfinal. Each team gets four waves, one right and one left each.

Judges score the heats remotely.

Top score from each surfer gives the total score.

Then there’s a thing called a “rebate.”

Let’s say Team A’s male surfer blew it on his Right, scoring at 3.33, but Team A’s female surfer smoked it on her Left, scoring a 9.17. In this scenario, Team A’s female surfer would be able to give her remaining Right to her male partner for a rebate surf to try and improve on his initial score.

The maximum number of waves a single surfer can surf in a heat is three — their two original waves and a rebate wave from their teammate. Rebate waves are not bonus waves — there are still only four waves available per team, per heat.

Think of this this way: Teams will either surf two waves each, or one teammate will surf three waves to their teammate’s single ride.

WSL’s gonna webcast this live, three pm local time on August 9, 2020.

Eight am on Australia’s east coast, midnight in Europe, seven pm in Brazil.

You dig?