The Weekly Bugle
Into the weeds of the surfing world with surfing's best ever turns.
Molly Picklum’s single turn at Sunset this week has been called the best ever. But what others are in the pantheon?
Sometimes a single turn can send shockwaves through the surfing world. This week it was Molly Picklum. “I threw everything at it and I kind of fell out of the sky and I was either dead or in the final,” Molly said afterwards. The surfing world asked the question, “Best ever turn by a woman?” To which the common answer was, “Yeah!”
It had me thinking about what other single gouges (no airs, no barrels) have had a lasting impact on our sport. Luckily, I had all the answers.
MP’s Cutback, 1970
Michael Peterson’s cutback, the famous image that graced the cover of the seminal surf movie Morning of the Earth, stands as one of the most iconic surf images of all time. The image was a frame grab taken from the Alby Falzon movie showing a young MP surfing Kirra in 1970. At the time that photo and that turn was the embodiment of a new type of surfing - extremely radical, super fast and always on edge. 54 years on, it has lost none of its mastery.
TC’s Snap, 1991
In the 1991 Pipe Masters semi-final Tom Carroll performed a single maneuver on a 12-foot Pipe wave that is now simply referred to as “The Snap”. Tom’s sister had only died the before adding an air of emotion to what is to this day is one of the most dominant displays by any surfer at Pipe. Taking off late on a solid Pipe double-up most observers expected Carroll to stall and wait for the barrel. Instead, TC drove his pink 7’6” Rawson almost vertically, before wrenching a viscous snap right in the pocket. It remains not only the reigning example of power and performance at Pipeline, but arguably the most memorable top turn in surfing history.
Tom Curren’s Cutback 1991
On a Maurice Cole-shaped 7’8” reverse vee, Tom Curren’s turn at Backdoor, and the photo captured by Tom Servais, has become one of surfing most iconic frames. “On the 7’8”, no graphic drew the eye away from those razor sleek lines and the slightly jagged pinline and simple yellow rail,” wrote Nic Carroll at the time. “To any eye in pro surfing today, this might seem odd. To the eyes of a surfing community trained by the archetypal 1980s vision of Curren with Op logo, it was an actual shock.” Oh and fun fact, this was the first wave surfed in Taylor Steele’s seminal Momentum film.
Dane Reynolds Haleiwa 2012
Peak competitive Dane Reynolds, and while he was up and down in a singlet, he would often emerge with a single piece of wizardry that was on a planet all on its own. There was this turn at the 2010 Rip Curl Search in Puerto Rico that he called the best turn he'd ever done not in a contest, not on tour -- in his life. But I recall this closeout reo at Haleiwa as being another benchmark. I saw it live, and while the camera angle doesn’t do it justice, it still deserves a relook.
Andy Irons, Cloudbreak
Riding a 6'10” narrow-tailed channel bottom Eric Arakawa, this Cloudbreak turn of Andy Irons perfectly captured the style, power, timing and flair of Andy. Brian Bielmann's photo has him at the apex of everything - harnessing the wave’s energy, and the doubling down with his own. It’s been called a snowboarding turn, but the beauty is that it’s almost a set-up - the potential of Andy is all to come.
John John Florence, Margaret River 2017
In a performance that redefined power surfing, John John Florence also trademarked his signature turn. On his Ghost Pyzel, the length, engagement, torque and style of this rail work has never been seen, or perhaps bettered. There’s another similar turn in the second wave of the WSL clip below, but it is the first one that seared into the surfing consciousness.
What have I missed? Carissa Moore and Steph Gilmore’s best waves tend to be a combination of incredible turns, and I couldn’t think of a single, one-off, move that made the cut. Kelly Slater? His rotations (Bells, Portugal) are ruled out. Barrels too. Fuck, there must be one. Hit me please with examples, or others that should make the list.