The World Surfing Champion is a title awarded annually to the best competition surfer for the year, today based on points earned for placings at events on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) ASP World Tour. A qualification system decides who can compete on the tour, for a total of 44 men (called the top 44) and 16 women.
The earliest world titles were amateur events decided by a single event, open to all comers, and were held only intermittently. The first was at Manly in Sydney in 1964. The second was held in Lima, Peru in 1965.
From 1973 to 1975, there was no amateur championship held. The International Surfing Federation had been unable to establish a format or sponsorship and concurrent with this the new professional era was dawning.
1968 World Champion Fred Hemmings, retired from competition and began his career as an event promoter and ran the Smirnoff Rip Curl World Pro/Am that became the defacto professional World Championship from 1970 through 1975. The winners were; 1970: Nat Young (Australia), 1971: Gavin Rudolph (South Africa), 1972: Paul Neilsen (Australia), 1973: Ian Cairns (Australia), 1974: Reno Abellira (Hawaii) and 1975: Mark Richards (Australia).
In 1976 the International Professional Surfing (IPS) organisation was formed by the 1968 champion, turned promoter, Fred Hemmings. It put together an annual tour of 12 events around the world with a points system for event placings to decide a ratings winner at the end. This is the format used today by the ASP.
Peter Townend and Ian Cairns devised the points scoring system, shamelessly (as PT put it) appropriating the way Formula One motor racing did it. Townend also ended up the winner that first year (1976) with Cairns finishing in second.
In early years the title brought honour but only modest financial rewards in extra sponsorship etc, and not all professional surfers had it as their goal. In 1979 for instance when Mark Richards won he hadn't even attended all the events, reckoning it better to concentrate on his board shaping business than travel for the South African leg.
In 1982, following a less than positive experience with the IPS at the new Op Pro, Ian Cairns formed the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) which crowned its first champion, Tom Carroll, in 1983. The ASP continues as the worldwide sanctioning body for professional surfing.
In 1999, Mark Occhilupo's win was a remarkable comeback. He'd been on the tour about 10 years earlier but had abandoned it, then returned stronger than ever.
In 2001 the ASP cut the tour short after the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11, on surfers' fears for their safety at competitions. The ratings leader C. J. Hobgood was declared the championship winner.
As with almost every any sport there's an element of fortune needed in surfing competitions. The competition format, types of waves and human judging all have an effect, which leaves plenty of room for speculation about excellent surfers who never won a title, or could have won more.
Mark Richards' record of 4 titles above and below 1979 to 1983 stood until 1997 when Kelly Slater took his 5th. It was joked that it'd taken so long Richards was scarcely remembered by young fans and was known to them only as "that guy whose record Kelly beat". Slater's 7th win in 2005 made him both the youngest and oldest champion.
Frieda Zamba, Wendy Botha and Lisa Anderson all took 4 women's titles. Layne Beachley has won seven titles in her career, making her the most dominant female professional surfer in the sport's history.
