Is the WSL trying to kill women’s pro surfing?

"If people who actually like surfing get bored and wander off, maybe it’s time to rethink the thing."

I have a stupidly short attention span. This makes me extremely fun on roadtrips. Are we there yet? What if we just decided that here was good enough?

Recently, for example, I drove to San Clemente and back in a single day. I did not enjoy it. I sat parked on the PCH, stared at the shuttered Boardriders store at Topanga, and wondered what the hell I was doing.

Sometimes, things take far too long, is what I’m saying. Sometimes, I am not that patient at all.

This has both nothing and everything to do with contest surfing. The way the Championship Tour works now involves a whole lot of waiting. There we are, grinding along through opening rounds in small, inconsistent surf. It’s rarely that interesting.

Try to watch heats live, and there’s more ad breaks than waves ridden, and most of the waves are shown on delay. Watching the replay the next day feels more live than the live show. Also, there’s only two ad breaks on the replay. I try to find joy in unexpected places.

All of that waiting and patience, two skills in which I don’t excel, is to hopefully someday make it to the promised land of finals day. That’s the thing that’s supposed to make this whole trip worthwhile. Sometimes, it even works. It might be nice, though, if a few more roadside attractions popped up along the way.

By the time finals day came around, I felt pretty sure that the comp at Margaret River had lasted the entire year. Pipeline? Oh, that was five years ago. Like driving the 405, time had lost all meaning.

But at last on Sunday in West Australia, finals day arrived just in time on the last day of the waiting period. No hate here, I believe in procrastination. I am a writer. Game recognizes game.

On Sunday Kaua’i girl Gabriela Bryan won her first ever CT event after beating Sawyer Lindblad in the final. She also rocketed up the rankings to slide into the top five. It might look like a surprise result, but Gabriela’s been making heats consistently and she was the only rookie her year to make the cut. It was only a matter of time.

If you didn’t know what a perfect layback should look like, John John showed how it’s done in his semi against George Pittar. Rail engaged. Body extended. Deep in the pocket. This is how you do it. Why am I talking about John John? Because once you’ve watched John do that turn, you can’t possibly bear to watch Tyler do it. It’s, like, so painful.

In the quarterfinals, Tyler surfed a clean, if not especially inspired heat to beat Caity. To be clear, Tyler deserved to win it. But that layback, man. She used it twice in that heat and the judges rewarded it both times.

Somehow, Tyler transforms what should be a radical turn into a whippy little spinny thing. Tyler’s version never seems to land too close to the pocket. It’s like a top turn trying to be something more interesting in the same way a writer might try to use bigger words to look smarter. It’s easy to see through the lie.

At the moment, the judging panel does not seem to reward variety. Or at least, they don’t punish repetition. It’s possible to win heats, even very important heats, doing the same turn over and over. I don’t think I’m being super controversial here if I say that this is not super exciting to watch.

It also seems to go against the whole point of the thing. At its heart, surfing is creative self-expression. The Championship Tour should showcase the best surfers in the world. Surely, the best in the world can muster up more than one turn at a time. I know I am impatient and bad at all kinds of things, but I don’t think this is too much to ask.

Tyler may have sold the judges on her layback, but Caity also made it easy for her. Caity’s inconsistency as a heat surfer is her weakness — and maybe her only weakness. In her quarterfinal against Tyler she fell on two scoring waves and left points on the table.

On her opening ride, Caity’s extra carves and wiggles made her look indecisive rather than stylish. The judges like smooth polish and Caity didn’t convince them. Despite her loss to Tyler, Caity’s still world number one. And she has plenty of time to shapeshift her dynamic, expressive surfing to fit what the judges want to see. I just hope that procees doesn’t kill the spark that gives Caity’s best surfing its magic.

In fact, Caity’s not alone in this dilemma, and the heat between Brisa and Molly had a similar quality. Brisa brought a fairly straightforward approach to the table, and she looked steady and controlled. The judges liked it. Her power and her tidy, carving turns have kept Brisa above the cut line this season and vaulted her into the top five. It’s a notable shift from last year when she missed the cut.

By contrast, Molly desperately wanted a big section to bash. That’s where she thrives. Out on the face at Margarets, she looked ragged around the edges. The thing about Molly is, she’s figured out the hard stuff in surfing first. She got a frickin’ 10 at Pipe. She can smash the hell out of giant sections at Sunset. Now she has to perfect the nitty-gritty details.

My favorite surfer of the day had to be Sawyer. She ripped it out there. Her solid backhand is doing an excellent job of memoryholing that bobble-headed paddle interference she had at Sunset. She’s animated and feisty. Who the heck wears a springy at Margs? Sawyer does. During her semi against Tyler, she nailed a legit hammer on the end section.

After beating Tyler, Sawyer made her first ever CT final. At Bells, she made the quarters for the first time. The San Clemente girl is starting to find her rhythm with this whole CT thing, and she flung herself over the cut line. In the process, she sent 12-year CT veteran Lakey Peterson to the Challenger Series.

In the final, Gabriela went on two waves early, but couldn’t find a score. Sawyer came out swinging and took an early lead with a mid-six on her opening ride. Gabriela could only find a five to answer, and it wasn’t until around the twenty-minute mark that she began to swing the heat.

Dancing with dolphins, Gabriela turned a two-turn wonder into a 7.83. Her first turn hooked deep into the pocket. An arcing bottom turn set her up perfectly for a closeout bash. Gabriela’s strength and short-legged stance allow her to pull her turns in tightly. At a time when the judge’s have fallen back in love with power turns, her surfing’s like catnip to them.

With ten minutes to go, Sawyer came close to retaking the lead. She needed a 7.44, a tall order with the onshore building. On a mid-sized set wave, she bashed out two solid hits and rode out some weird Margs double-up shit on the inside. The score, a 7.27 came heartbreakingly close. Not enough.

Inside the final minutes, Gabriela slammed it shut with an 8.10. The score mostly came from a heavy closeout hit, but it felt like the judges had painted themselves into a corner on this one. They’d been paying two-turn waves all heat. They’d already thrown high 7’s. There was nowhere left to go but up. Gabriela rightly won this one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sawyer get hers soon.

We’ve got about a month until the tiny post-cut women’s field heads to Tahiti. You have already heard my views on the cut and how bad it is for women’s surfing.

I will not bore you with that sort of thing again here.

Ten women. That’s fucking absurd.

I like to be optimistic, sometimes.

And in that mode, I would like to hope that the new CEO takes a hard look at the product his little sports league is offering. It is, I would argue, not the showcase the athletes’ talent deserves nor is it especially entertaining to watch most of the time. If people who actually like surfing get bored and wander off, maybe it’s time to rethink the thing.

In the meantime, I’ll just be over here trying to stay awake in traffic.