Conner Coffin Qualifies for Top Surfing Series
Montecito-Raised 22-Year-Old to Compete Against World’s Best Surfers on Planet’s Best Waves
With the support of family, sponsors, and an irreproachable answer to “Where are you from?” Conner Coffin awaited his destiny: to compete at the highest level of professional surfing. Capricious currents yanked him around in his quest until, midway through this year, he figured it out. On December 3 at Sunset Beach in Oahu, by finishing fifth in the last event of the World Surf League Men’s Qualifying Series, Coffin moved into the top-10 rankings, a ticket to the 2016 Championship Tour (CT).
It’s like a golfer qualifying for the Masters and British Open, only more exclusive. Coffin will join 33 others — including the 22 top finishers on this year’s CT and two wildcards — on a tour that will take him to 11 of the world’s prime surfing spots on four continents.
He’s not the first Santa Barbara surfer to get there — just the latest in a span of decades. Tom Curren was a three-time world champion, winning his first in 1985. Chris Brown and Bobby Martinez followed in the wake of Curren on the men’s tour. Kim Mearig won a women’s world title in 1984, and Lakey Peterson is currently ranked No. 6 on the women’s CT.
