Five of Hawaii’s best male surfers started this season on the Championship Tour, but that number is certain to drop next year with only John John Florence assured of re-qualification heading into this week’s Billabong Pipe Masters. As the CT
Five of Hawaii’s best male surfers started this season on the Championship Tour, but that number is certain to drop next year with only John John Florence assured of re-qualification heading into this week’s Billabong Pipe Masters.
As the CT makes its annual finale at Pipeline, the familiar waters will need to provide some good karma for Keanu Asing, Dusty Payne and Kauai’s Sebastian Zietz. If things go perfectly, all three could be back on next year’s elite tour. But there’s a very real chance that all three could fall off.
With Freddy Patacchia having already announced his retirement from the CT earlier this year, the contingent was already bound to drop below five. But Florence and Asing are the only two who would re-qualify with the current rankings. Zietz has lots of work to do and needs a ninth-place result at minimum. He’ll probably need better, with a run to the semifinals giving him a good chance. It’s certainly not impossible, as he reached the quarters in both 2012 and 2013.
Payne has to hope others do his dirty work for him. He doesn’t control his own destiny and is too far down the CT rankings to move up enough to reach the top 22. But he’s 12th in the Qualifying Series with two potential double qualifiers ahead of him. If both Kolohe Andino (currently 23rd on the CT) and Miguel Pupo (25th) can improve enough to get into the top 22, then Payne would move back in as the final QS qualifier.
But that result would almost certainly come at the expense of Zietz, so it’s virtually impossible for both he and Payne to be back next season.
Though Asing is currently in, his position is very precarious. He’s 21st in the rankings, just 50 points ahead of Michel Bourez and 1,000 points ahead of Andino. He has room to improve with a 25th place as his next throwaway, so reaching the third round could be all he needs.
Again, if Zietz is to move up with a big Pipe Masters result, it could be Asing that he knocks out.
It’s unfortunate that these three are all battling with each other for the final qualification spots. It seems very likely that the number of Hawaii surfers will drop from five to maybe three, but probably just two in 2016.
While Payne may not be back for next year’s world tour, he’s still in the mix for the 2015 Triple Crown title. Two events in and Payne sits in third, behind Australia’s Wade Carmichael and Brazil’s Gabriel Medina. He’d need to leapfrog those two, while staving off Mick Fanning, John John Florence and others who trail closely behind.
Oh yeah, there are also six surfers all still in the world title race who have a very different mission on their minds.
The event officially begins Tuesday with the trials to complete the main draw. Surfline is forecasting a very promising swell for the beginning of the waiting period, so it could be action packed from day one.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
