JURY AND EXECUTIONER
Fractions. Decimals that leave you dead in the water. Less than half a point is still a mile away. And more often than not, it’s the smallest losses that have the biggest impact.
World titles, re-qualification, prize money, sponsorship incentives, the wrath of an unforgiving, largely anonymous and unsentimental online audience, watching, waiting for you to cough it up, or emerge victorious. Regardless of opinion, derision or applause, the fate of the professional surfer rests in the hands of the big five: the judges.
Watch enough heats and you’ll start to see a pattern form. Where the scale is set, what will move it north, importance of wave selection, the indifference to percentage surfing (surfing for the score, not crushing it) and surfers being lavished with big numbers for a high risk, devil may care approach.
For the most part, the panel gets it right and to be fair, it’s a faceless and thankless job. Unglamorous. Repetitive. Battery chickens, cooped up in the tower, pooping out scores, wave after wave, heat after heat. And yes, they make mistakes. As the saying goes, ‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’ But it’s the times
