What does it all mean? Photo: Aaron Hughes//World Surf League
This weekend, Kelly Slater was on the wrong end of the dreaded mid-season cut. Liam O’Brien made sure of that when he ousted the 11-time world champ in the Round of 32 at Margaret River. Curiously, after his exit, Kelly was rather calm, almost jovial sounding in his post-heat interview, talking about getting barreled at The Box and hinting at a wildcard for the upcoming event in Lemoore, California.
“Plans for the future? I want to get really barreled, there’s a big wave,” he said, longingly staring past the microphone at The Box. “We’ll see how things turn out.”
When asked about his chances of surfing at the Surf Ranch Pro he coyly replied, “I know a guy.”
The future is certainly unclear for the 11-time champ. It’s hard, like really hard, to see him grinding away on the Challenger Series to re-qualify – although apparently he’s entered into the upcoming event at Snapper. It’s also difficult to not see him get a wildcard into an event at a facility he created (The Surf Ranch). With Outerknown sponsoring Tahiti, he’ll likely get a wildcard to Teahupo’o as well – which is good, given his propensity for the dramatic when the waves fire at barreling locations.
So that brings us to 2024, and re-qualifying. There are several interesting scenarios hanging in the balance that mostly have to do with the World Surf League. First, he could get one of the two season-long wildcards the WSL has at its disposal, which would put him on tour the rest of the season, and the first half of next year (that’s how Sally Fitzgibbons was able to surf the first part of this season and last, despite missing last season’s cut).
If that were to happen, Kelly could actually still make the Final 5 at Trestles if he just completely goes off the rest of the year and makes up the 30,000-plus points he would need to overtake the field. A season-long wildcard is given at the discretion of the WSL offices and they have four of them between the men and women, so it’s actually easy to see them giving one to Kelly and Miguel Pupo, who are the two immediate surfers just below the cutline (note that Kelly’s won’t come without controversy given he’s tied with Barron Mamiya and Michael Rodrigues).
That brings us to qualifying for the tour through event wildcards. It’s conceivable that Kelly could make up enough CT points in event wildcards if he were to do well enough in those specific events, especially since he’s now allowed to collect points that way. In a little-examined addendum to its rule book, the WSL made a tweak, allowing world champions and those that had qualified for the Top 5 Finals event to be able to collect tour points through wildcards: WSL Wildcards will not receive CT Ranking Points in CT Events after the Mid-Season Cut; provided that WSL in its sole discretion may elect for a single WSL Wildcard to compete in the CT Events after the MidSeason Cut for Ranking Points in the available WSL Wildcard slots if the surfer is a former world champion or WSL Final five competitor.
That’s on page 18 if you want to browse it for yourself. It’s certainly a scenario worth watching with Mr. Slater. He looked as good as he has all year at Margaret River and from my perspective, he doesn’t seem like he’s ready to stop competing anytime soon.
