"Holding it at Lower Trestles year after year turned Finals Day into a low-stakes hostage situation."
It’s possible to agree, I think, on the following two matters as superficially contradictory as they may seem at a first pass.
One, the sudden-death Finals Day format is a terrific way to build the fevers of spectators and push surfers into hitherto unseen levels of performance.
(Think Stephanie Gilmore, unbeatable, as she mowed through the top five to win an eighth world title and scramble Carissa Moore so hard the five-timer quit the tour shortly after.)
Surfing’s most important voice Matt Warshaw let his opinion known last year,
As fans, we’ve been frog-marched to Lowers. The pros, I’m guessing—apart from Toledo who lives in nearby San Clemente, is scared of big tropical reef waves, and knows Lowers better than you know the opening lines of your favorite Taylor Swift song—hate Lowers Finals Day even more than we do.
The long overdue change to Finals Day will have a profound and lasting effect on the tour.
Toledo, for one, ain’t ever gonna win a world title ever again.
And it opens the door not just for Jack Robinson and John John Florence but, incredibly, to an old man in his fifty-third year and three decades after he claimed the first of his eleven world titles.
The road to Kelly Slater 12 needs a little grease, of course, wild cards, bigger than usual swells, and it’s improbable as all hell.
But, when has improbable stopped Kelly Slater?
Cue, eight-to-ten-foot Cloudbreak, and the last meaningful swell of the 2025 season.
Who would bet against a man who’s been surfing Cloudbreak for almost forty years, whose artistry quivers even the limpest organ?
Dare you to dream?
