Sunny Garcia is a professional surfer. He grew up in Wai'anae and, after leaving school, debuted on the 1986 Gotcha Pro at Sandy Beach, Oahu, beating the 1984 champ Tom Carroll.
Patrick Shane Dorian, or "Shane", is an American surfer from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. He spent 11 years touring on the World Championship Tour as a professional surfer. Dorian quit competition surfing in 2003 to focus on big waves. He is currently a big wave surfer and one of the best in the world at big wave riding.
Keala Kennelly is a professional surfer, DJ, and actress from Kauai, Hawaii. After spending a decade ranked in the top 10 on the ASP World Championship Tour (WCT), Kennelly took a break from the tour in 2007 to explore her passions for acting and music, including a recurring role as a surfer in the 2007 series John from Cincinnati. She continues to DJ and compete as a big wave surfer.
Rochelle Ballard is an American professional surfer and a veteran of the Association of Surfing Professional's (ASP) World Championship Tour. Due to her natural and skilled barrel riding technique, she is considered the best female barrel rider in the world. Through her passion, courage and skill, Rochelle has been a pioneer for the advancement of Women's surfing over the past two decades. Ballard's mastery of big waves and support of women's surfing, rank her among surfing history's most elite. She also co-founded International Women's Surfing (IWS) and has appeared in several movies and television shows, most notably Blue Crush,Step Into Liquid, and Beyond the Break. In 2012, she became the ISA World Masters World Champion. During her years on tour, Ballard won 7 world championship events and in 2004, she was runner-up to the World Championship title. In 1997, at the Billabong Pro at Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast, Australia, Rochelle scored two perfect 10 barrel rides against Layne Beachley in the semifinals and went on to win the event, after beating Lisa Anderson in the finals. To this day, Ballard still holds the women's world record for scoring two perfect 10s in a single heat.
Russell Winter is a British professional surfer. The highlight of his career so far has been gaining a place on the ASP World Championship Tour.
Michael Eugene Fanning, nicknamed "White Lightning" is a former Australian professional surfer. Fanning won the 2007, 2009 and 2013 ASP World Tour. In 2015 he survived an encounter with what is suspected to be a great white shark during the J-Bay Open finals in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa.
The O'Neill World Cup of Surfing is a prestigious event in professional surfing held annually at Pūpūkea on Oahu in Hawaii.
John "John" Alexander Florence is a Hawaiian professional surfer. He is known as "one of the most dominant Pipe surfers of his era" and won the title of 2017 World Surf League Men's Champion, making him and his arch-rival, Gabriel Medina currently even in terms of world titles. He is the first Hawaii-born surfer to win back-to-back world titles since the late great Andy Irons.
The U.S. Open of Surfing is a week-long surfing competition held annually during the summer in Huntington Beach, California. Generally held on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier, the U.S. Open is part of the qualification process for the World Surf League and is a WSL QS 10,000 event. It is the largest surfing competition in the world. It has been owned by IMG since 2000.
World Qualification Series (WQS) is a surfing points competition for the honour of competing with the world's best surfers on the ASP World Tour. The WQS is sometimes referred to as 'The Grind' or simply the 'QS' by competitors.
Carissa Kainani Moore is an American professional surfer and the 2011, 2013 and 2015 WSL Women's World Tour Champion.
Sally Fitzgibbons is an Australian professional surfer on the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour. She was born in Gerroa, New South Wales, Australia.
Cory Lopez is a professional surfer born on March 21, 1977 in Dunedin, Florida, USA. Lopey is his preferred nickname. Cory has been a top ranked contender on the ASP World Surfing circuit for multiple years and is considered by many to be one of the best 'Free Surfers' on the planet.
Teahupoʻo is a village on the south-east coast of the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia, southern Pacific Ocean. It is known for the surf break and heavy, glassy waves offshore, often reaching 2 to 3 m, and sometimes up to 7 meters. It is the site of the annual Billabong Pro Tahiti surf competition, part of the World Championship Tour (WCT) of the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour surfing circuit and used to be one stop in the World Tour of the International Bodyboarding Association. Bodyboarding pioneers Mike Stewart and Ben Severson were the first to surf Teahupo'o in 1986 and it soon became an underground spot for thrill-seeking bodyboarders. Few professional surfers rode Teahupo'o during the early 1990s and it was only in 1998, at the Gotcha Tahiti Pro, that Teahupo'o became widely recognized as having some of the heaviest waves in the world. On August 17, 2000 Laird Hamilton is credited with surfing the "heaviest wave" ever ridden, documented in the film Riding Giants. In 2003 the late Malik Joyeux successfully rode one of the largest waves ever ridden.
Evan Geiselman has been a competing surfer since the age of seven. He has won 12 East Coast Championship titles. He is the younger brother of professional surfer Eric Geiselman. He has been trying to be part of the ASP World Championship Tour for three years now, but the Qualification Series are competitive. He didn't get the results he was hoping for on the 2014 WQS. At the beginning of 2014, he moved from San Clemente, California back home, to New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Gabriel Medina Pinto Ferreira is a Brazilian professional surfer, also the 2014 and 2018 WSL World Champion. Medina joined the world's elite of the World Surf League Tour in 2011, and in his rookie year he finished within the top 12 of the ASP World Tour at the age of 17. In March 2014 he won the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast. Media sources credit him as being the second person to have executed a maneuver called the "Backflip". Medina also became the first person ever to land this move in competition.
Malia Manuel is a current female professional surfer from Kauai, Hawaii. She won Rookie of the Year in 2012 and was ranked 5th on the 2014 ASP World Tour. In 2008, at the age of 14 she became the youngest surfer ever to win the U.S. Open of Surfing.
Surfing in the United States is a popular pastime in coastal areas of the country.
