Kelly Slater

Kelly Slater is sooooo good… How good is he? Slater is so good that he won the Assn. of Surfing Professionals World Tour championship twice this year. In fact, he won it twice in one week! OK, that might not be so funny to those who work so hard to run the ASP World Tour, but unfortunately for them, it's true. Sort of. Here's how it went down. Slater and all the ASP pros went up to Ocean Beach in San Francisco last week for the 10th of the 11 events on the ASP World Tour.

There's a sports blog with a video clip on Yahoo! Sports titled "Jordy Smith pulls arguably the best surfing move ever. " The move is called a "rodeo flip," and it's kind of a combination of a flip and a reverse 360. I know it's a sick move because there are 1,390 comments at last count, and many of them just have one word to describe it: "sick. " It won't be long before Smith starts pulling off the rodeo flip in a competition, and of course, it's an assumption on my part that he hasn't already.

Slater advances to Round of 12; gets a Mulhern   Slater cruises into quarterfinals   Surfing legend Rob Machado wins his Hurley Pro "Wildcard" heat   Kelly Slater: 2011 US Open of Surfing men's champion  

Wet and wild with Rockin' Fig It's the big week in Surf City as the $150,000 Phillips U.S. Open of Surfing is going full steam. The shape is actually pretty good, considering a lot of times when it's mackin' like it is, it gets out of control. Long freight train lefts and bowly rights were seen much of the time outside, with some reforms going all the way through connecting to the shore break. The overcast skies in the mornings, gave way to sunshine pretty early most of the time with air temperatures in the 70s. So far, conditions have been pretty happening, and the biggest crowds for the start of a U.S. Open contest were seen, with the sands full of beach-goers getting a treat with the high level of surfing going on. The start of the contest will feature many rounds of eliminations, in this case we've already run six of the men's rounds and narrowed the field of longboarders down to the semis.

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Brett Simpson used the advantage of his home surf to advance to the semifinals at the Hurley U.S. Open of Surfing this morning. Simpson beat defending champ Nathaniel Curran and reaches the semis at the Open for the second straight year. Simpson will face C.J. Hobgood in the semis. Hobgood defeated Patrick Gudauskas in the quarterfinals. “This is an exciting day for me,” said Simpson, who finished with a 13.50 combined score. “It’s huge.

The surf will meet the turf this summer in Huntington Beach when the first Surf & Turk Gold Tournament is held at Meadowlark Golf Course. The event, scheduled for July 27, will bring together the worlds of surfing and golf as amateur and professionals from the surfing industry take part in the shotgun tournament. So far, 23 surfers have committed to the tournament, event director Jeff Wermuth said Tuesday. "We'll have a sold-out field of 144 golfers," Wermuth said.

The three-day Labor Day weekend went off at Surf City with scorching air temps that climbed into the 80s, with triple digits inland and a pumping south swell that drove a million people down to the beaches to cool off. Downtown was packed, traffic was thick on the sidewalks and in the streets, too. Part of the crowd came down to the beach to check out Boardfest, the women’s surfing event on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier....

The final showdown of the year went down at legendary Pipeline during the Rip Curl Pipe Masters last week. Mother nature sent some 8- to 12-foot surf to the barrel that breaks over a shallow reef and produces some of the hollowest waves on the planet. The final was a déjà vu duel between the two best surfers of the past five years — Andy Irons and Kelly Slater. Veteran East Coaster Cory Lopez made the heat too, as well as Mr. Casual, Rob Machado. But it was Irons who struck first, with a massive backside deep-tube ride on a left, where he got spit out and hit a big floater, to receive a 9.87 score.

Audiences at Edwards Big Newport had an opportunity to meet professional surfer Rob Machado twice at a Quiksilver-sponsored event on June 6 — once in human form and again as a penguin. Machado, who won last year's U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, joined more than 400 people at the theater for an advanced screening of Sony Pictures' "Surf's Up," an animated action-comedy profiling a young penguin surfer as he prepares for his first pro competition. In addition to providing advice to animators, Machado lent his voice to the film, starring as a penguin version of himself, complete with his signature hair and goatee.

Huntington Beach has found a place for itself in the 2007 Newport Beach Film Festival, and, not surprisingly, it has done so in the form of a surf documentary. But "Chasing the Dream" is not the traditional collage of exotic surf spots or world-champion surfers. Following eight Huntington Beach High School teens as they pursue their dream of becoming world-championship surfers, the film aims to show the behind-the-scenes reality of professional surfing. "In a lot of the surf films out there, you see this elite, hard-bodied, tan group of people — not vulnerable human beings," said director Angelo Mei. "This film shows you what it really takes to become a professional surfer."

The surfing world is still buzzing about the final heat in last week's Rip Curl Pro, the second contest in the Assn. of Surfing Professionals' World Tour schedule at Bells Beach in Australia. Kelly Slater, who seems to be leaning toward making a serious run at his 12th ASP World Tour championship, did not win the event. He lost to Mick Fanning in the final heat. But what Slater did do is pull off another perfect 10 in the final heat, his second one in less than a year. He also did it last year at the Quiksilver Pro in New York, both with the same move - an air-reverse 360. Surfinglife.com.au has put together a video of both so you can judge which one was better.

Pro surfing and school don't mix. At least not the kind of school that requires its students to show up on time, spend most of the day in a classroom and then go home and do homework into the afternoon and evening. That's why so many up-and-coming surfers are home-schooled. That's not a bad thing, and sometimes it can be even better than public schooling. But for those who do go to school and also try to grow a professional surfing career, much credit should be given.

"Surfing is not a crime. " That's what 11-time Assn. of Surfing Professionals champ Kelly Slater tweeted when he found out last month that 40-year-old Rex Flodstrom was arrested by Chicago police for - wait for it - surfing off the shores of Lake Michigan. Flodstrom was charged with disorderly conduct, two counts of violating a Chicago Park District ordinance and one count of being in the park after park hours. He was handcuffed and taken to jail in his wetsuit. When the news got out, Slater was outspoken and expressed he might go to Chicago and attend Flodstrom's court appearance, which takes place Thursday, in a show of support.

Now that the 2011 Assn. of Surfing Professionals World Tour is complete — in case you've been in a coma, Kelly Slater won his 11th World Tour crown — the ASP has named the 34 competitors for next year's ASP World Tour title: 1. Kelly Slater (USA), 2. Joel Parkinson (Australia), 3. Taj Burrow (Australia), 4. Gabriel Medina (Brazil), 5. Owen Wright (Australia), 6. Adriano de Souza (Brazil), 7. Julian Wilson (Australia), 8. Jordy Smith (South Africa), 9. Alejo Muniz (Brazil), 10. Michel Bourez (Portugal)

Kelly Slater is sooooo good… How good is he? Slater is so good that he won the Assn. of Surfing Professionals World Tour championship twice this year. In fact, he won it twice in one week! OK, that might not be so funny to those who work so hard to run the ASP World Tour, but unfortunately for them, it's true. Sort of. Here's how it went down. Slater and all the ASP pros went up to Ocean Beach in San Francisco last week for the 10th of the 11 events on the ASP World Tour.

Any day now, Kelly Slater most likely will clinch an unprecedented and almost unfathomable 11th Assn. of Surfing Professionals World Title. But as we all know, Slater is one in a million. For the other 999,999 and then some, there are events like Saturday's Family Surf Fest at Ninth Street in Huntington Beach. It's more than a contest; it's a day at the beach. That's right. In November. "There are a handful of kids and surfers who want to be the next Kelly Slater," said Chris Williams, the contest coordinator for the Christian Surfing Federation, which is putting on the event.

There's a sports blog with a video clip on Yahoo! Sports titled "Jordy Smith pulls arguably the best surfing move ever. " The move is called a "rodeo flip," and it's kind of a combination of a flip and a reverse 360. I know it's a sick move because there are 1,390 comments at last count, and many of them just have one word to describe it: "sick. " It won't be long before Smith starts pulling off the rodeo flip in a competition, and of course, it's an assumption on my part that he hasn't already.

There was talk before the start of the U.S. Open of Surfing that 2011 could be the year of the Young Guns. Just days before Sunday's Men's final, former World Tour veteran and first-year contest director Pat O'Connell, felt the same way. But O'Connell was quick to warn of one thing: don't overlook the veterans. Nobody was able to overlook Kelly Slater at the Huntington Beach Pier over the weekend. Slater, at 39, showed why he is the winningest surfer in history by easily claiming his second U.S. Open title.

Slater advances to Round of 12; gets a Mulhern   Slater cruises into quarterfinals   Surfing legend Rob Machado wins his Hurley Pro "Wildcard" heat   Kelly Slater: 2011 US Open of Surfing men's champion  

So last week, Huntington Beach gave Kelly Slater a key to the city. Well deserved. Didn't they name a street after him, too? You know, Slater Avenue, between Talbert and Warner avenues? Anyway, he deserves it. Some call him the best surfer ever, and it's hard to argue when you go on facts — like the fact that he has won 10 ASP World Titles, including one as recently as last year. No one has won even half as many men's world titles as Slater, and four years ago, he passed one of his childhood heroes, Tom Curren, to become the all-time leader in World Championship Tour (WCT)