"The Endless Summer Turns Golden, by Richard Johnston, ran in the Dec 6, 1976, issue of Sports Illustrated

 (pronounced “hooey”) means a club, a company, a society, a corporation, a partnership, or even—to stretch it a little—a conspiracy. Last week, Hawaii’s surfers were leaning toward the last definition. Once again, as four times before in the eight-year history of the Smirnoff World Pro-Am Surfing championships, the Hawaiians had been beaten by the Australians, but this time with a difference. Although Mark Warren, a 23-year-old Australian, was the nominal champion, the real winner was a surfing 

 that calls itself “The Bronzed Aussies.”

 chairman of the board (so to speak) is 24-year-old Ian Cairns from Perth, in Australia’s farthest west, who won the 1973 Smirnoff on an unusual triple-skegged board and finished second last year. “Warren, Peter Townend and I got together this year,” Cairns said after the final at Oahu’s Sunset Beach. “You know, to get sponsors, endorsements, travel money, that sort of thing. We got a manager and we’re writing articles, doing promotional work and holding clinics in Sydney. We’re pooling all our income and we’ve done nicely so far.” Nicely at the 1976 Smirnoff meant $5,000 contributed by Warren and $500 more by Townend, 23, who finished fourth, boosting the conglomerate’s year-to-date earnings from surfing prizes to $15,932.25.

Corporate enterprise is no stranger to most professional sports—but surfing? Are these evanescent and usually unfindable free spirits about to be transformed into button-down businessmen who ask “How much?” rather than “How high?” when told the surf is up? Are there even now 10-percenters creeping among the palms and across the sands of Australia’s Gold Coast, Hawaii’s North Shore and South Africa’s beaches on the lookout for a sun-bleached star to sign? Baseball players have been heard to say they would play for nothing (though not recently, perhaps), but in the last 20 years playing for no pay, all day, every day, has been almost a religion for thousands of young men and women who have migrated to the warmer and wavier areas of the world. Now one begins to wonder if the endless summer is about to fade into the fiduciary fall.

 will be seen as a symptom, not a cause, of change. The gradual elevation of surfing into a professional sport rather than an anarchic escape device for athletic dropouts began in 1969 when Smirnoff held the first “big money” surfing contest at Santa Cruz, Calif. Big money then was $4,100. Dispirited but undaunted by a final decided on two-foot waves, the sponsor decided to move its contest to Hawaii the following year, and ever since the event has been a jewel waiting for a crown to adorn.

Now, thanks in large part to the efforts of Fred Hemmings, Smirnoff meet director and a former world amateur surfing champion, the crown is taking shape. At the kickoff party at the Kuilima Hyatt Resort Hotel the Saturday night before this year’s contest began, Hemmings announced formation of the International Professional Surfers, a dues-paying organization that has brought together 14 official tournaments in 1977 offering a combined $146,100 in prize money. Randy Rarick, newly fledged as IPS administrative director after a two-year tour of tournament sites, explained the points and money earnings rating system that will establish a world champion; and a representative of Beachcomber Bill’s, a California sandal maker that sponsored the party, promised the Grand Prix’ top pointmaker $1,500 and an around-the-world airplane ticket. Every surfer present signed up.

The plane ticket is no small inducement. Though Hemmings and Rarick claim to have modeled their surfing circuit on the PGA golf tour, it is in truth a circuit of the whole world, and a surfer who taps out in Coca-Cola’s $25,000 tournament in Sydney next May can’t just hitchhike 3,000 miles across Australia and then swim the Indian Ocean to make the next event, South Africa’s Gunston 500. The tournament routing is coordinated to eliminate backtracking, but the mileage is staggering: first New Zealand, then four Australian tournaments, next two in South Africa, then Brazil, next Florida and finally five contests in Hawaii.

Thoughts of these distances, combined with a little night music provided by the Pacific outside the hotel, kept the new IPS members from succumbing to total exuberance. No one can ride a 30- to 40- foot wave and that was the kind that was hitting the ramparts of the Kuilima during the founding session. A North Pacific storm had sent down a monstrous swell. “For the first time I can remember,” said Hemmings, “I was worried that we’d have too much surf to start the contest.” The worry proved unfounded; on Monday morning the pros encountered articulated and well-spaced 10- to 12-foot sets at Sunset.

Smirnoff representatives had wondered privately if all the talk of Australia’s two $25,000 tournaments, a third worth $19,000 and the $14,000 Gunston in South Africa might diminish the appreciation of their $12,100 event. But actually, the Smirnoff’s top money of $5,000 equals that of the other proposed events, and winning here was seen as a leg up for any surfer contemplating the new tour. If anything, the contestants who showed up Monday morning were even more motivated than in the past.

There were absentees. Shaun Thomson, a highly regarded South African, was kept home by college exams. A pro surfer from Florida was also missing, which allowed Hawaii’s Eddie Aikau, miffed at being left off the list of invited surfers, to move into one of the preliminary heats.

Despite the short notice, some 3,000 people thronged Sunset’s grungy beachfront overlook Monday morning—most of them ardent supporters of the Hawaiian contestants. It was not to be one of their happiest days. By the time the eight six-man heats had been run off, it was clear that the Australians had landed in force. Two men from each heat advanced into the three semifinal heats, and nine of the qualifiers were Aussies, among them all three members of the then-undisclosed 

. Six Hawaiians and one South African—Jonathan Paarman—also survived the prelims. Before the day ended, Hemmings decided to go ahead with the single-heat women’s championship. Jericho Poppler of Long Beach made the waves come tumbling down exactly as she wished to win the $1,000 prize.

The plan was to hold the semifinals and finals the next day, but a storm closed out all the beaches until Thursday, when the sea went flat. On Sunday, when the surf came back up to 10 feet, Hemmings elected to go ahead, first with a repechage heat of third-place finishers to round out the field for the three semifinals at six men each. Two more Hawaiians slipped into contention, giving them one fewer than the Australians. The surf was good—long, well-formed waves, some off the point and others opening up in Sunset’s middle—but a continually shifting wind tended to blow surfers off waves they thought they had. Nobody backed off voluntarily—including Townend, who edged out his compatriot Cairns for a berth in the final.

In midafternoon the six finalists hit the water—Hawaii’s Aikau and James Jones, South Africa’s Paarman, and Aussies Warren, Townend and Mark Richards, the 19-year-old defending champion who was battling a bad back in the hope of being the contest’s first repeat winner. The surf itself seemed to stiffen for this last onslaught, which would end when 48 waves had been ridden. There were many good rides, but it was clear that the top contenders were Warren, Richards and Aikau. The Australians were swift and stylish. In contrast, Aikau, dark and powerfully built, seemed to overpower waves, but not quite enough of them.

For the first time in memory, all of the finalists were met with spontaneous applause as they emerged from the water and, also for the first time in memory, there was no complaints about the judging. Richards hugged Warren after accepting his $2,000 second-place check, and Aikau, who finished third, was graceful in defeat. A few Hawaiians muttered “damned Australians” when they heard about the 

, but it was clear they were annoyed only because they hadn’t thought of forming one themselves. There will almost surely be a “Sons of Ha-waii” somewhere along the 1977 Grand Prix trail.

As soon as the meet was over, a few of the contestants prepared to go home, but the corporate kings of Australia settled in to wait for the IPS-sanctioned $6,000 Duke Classic and the $3,000 Masters’ Pipeline in December and the $10,000 World Cup in January. Would the conglomerate come back for future Smirnoff contests if there was no increase in the prize money?

“No way to keep us out,” said one of the Aussies. “It was the first and it’s still the best, and besides, it’s here. But don’t quote me.”

"THE ENDLESS SUMMER TURNS GOLDEN," SPORTS ILLUSTRATED COVERS THE 1976 SMIRNOFF PRO-AM

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