Rip Curl Pro

Media baron Kerry Packer would introduce full-blown professionalism to cricket in 1977, but Rip Curl’s bold announcement four years earlier was history-making. And there were many within surfing who deplored the introduction of the cash culture, particularly at Bells, which in its own way was as hallowed a playing field as Wimbledon.

Since its inception in the early 1960s, the Bells meet had been frequently blessed with big, powerful waves which sorely tested the skill and courage of Australia’s leading surfers and big wave specialists. In its very early days big wave legends like Bob Pike, Peter Troy and Nipper Williams would dust down their guns and perform in the only Australian contest that regularly offered waves which matched Hawaii’s for size and power.

Of course, not every year was vintage, but in 1965 the swell peaked at almost 20 feet and in 1969 most of the contest was held in superb surf nudging 10 feet. With conditions like this it was natural that Bells should become the number one performance forum in the country.

So in 1973 the Rip Curl Pro became Australia’s first professional surfing event, with the country’s best competing for beer money which was spent immediately in the local pub.

By the mid-1970s the Rip Curl Pro had become one of the high points of the international pro circuit – a party event with good waves more often than not. Surfer and film-maker Jack McCoy had a restaurant called “The Summer House” and between there, the pub and houses of the leading local lights, the partying never stopped.

But Simon had not yet peaked. In 1981 – in the biggest and best Rip Curl Pro since 1965 – the big guy took his performance in surfing’s best amphitheatre to new heights, in what was possibly the best and gutsiest display of contest surfing ever seen outside Hawaii.

If the Rip Curl Pro has not turned it on in such stature in the years since 1981, there have been many memorable displays, both at Rincon and the Bowl.

During the late ’70s and into the early ’80s, the Rincon finals in the smaller years turned into beer-swilling parties on the rocks for supporters of both finalists – noisy, good-spirited affairs which underlined the different atmosphere that the Rip Curl Pro has managed to hold onto through the years. And if the crowd on the rocks has grown bigger and noisier over the years, so too has the audience on the hill. More than 20,000 people watched the memorable 1987 final when 17-year-old Nicky Wood showed judgement and skill beyond his years to defend fellow rookie Richard Marsh in a balls-and-all final.