THERE may be a professional sport, somewhere, that depends more than surfing on the conditions of the playing field, but I've been trying all day, and can't think of one.
It's why the professional surfing circuit - at the top - evolved away from the bums-on-the-beach model it began with, into the Dream Tour of the old Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), and then to the current Championship Tour (CT) of the present setup controlled by the privately owned World Surf League.
Under this model, the world's very best surfers perform in the very best conditions that the best waves on the planet have to offer.
Merewether is a very good wave on its day - and yesterday was one of those days - but it's in nobody's objective list of the best 10 waves on Earth.
Yet last year, when COVID turned the CT on its head, Merewether turned on enough good surf to make finals day for the Newcastle Cup a memorable occasion.
And yesterday - after three days of weather chaos that may or may not be proof positive of climate change - the sun dawned to a beautiful sunny-to-overcast day and ruler edges of swell groomed clean by an overnight northwesterly wind that blew ever less intensely with each passing hour until by the time the finals of the City of Newcastle Pro and the AAP Consulting Women's Pro took to the water, it was in gorgeously photogenic, glassed-off conditions that gave wave face enough for the best on the day to swoop like eagles and carve like the swiftest of fish into the Surfest history books.
It was a day that broke all the rules. Or, if it didn't break them, it adapted them to suit the conditions.
The surfers were given an ultimatum of sorts.
Accept short - very short - 20 minute heats, and with four surfers chasing the waves on offer during those 20 minutes, so that the contest could compress two days' surfing into one.
Or roll the dice on an expensive and unprecedented extension of the contest into today, at a time that everyone knew the massive waves of Saturday would be nothing more than memory on a Monday with predicted waves of less than a metre.
The surfers agreed with the organisers' wisdom, and so the competitors and the audience alike were treated to one of the most intense competitive days of professional surfing that any of us are likely to see.
For the technically minded, the waves were about one metre to 1.75 metres with the occasional bigger set wave, from a south-south-east direction of about 165 degrees on the compass.
It wasn't death-defying, like the first event of the year, the Billabong Pipeline Pro, that quite literally separated the men from the boys in some sessions, and marked another quantum leap in women's surfing in others, as the North Shore of Hawaii's Oahu turned on one of its best winter seasons in surfing history.
But it was visually stunning, both on the streamed vision - where most of the WSL's audience will have watched the event - or for the thousands who made it to Merewether, and saw the action go down in the picturebook conditions in front of them.
And if that wasn't enough, the script writing gods also got their heads together and allowed results that came straight from the heart.
OK, it was skill and local knowledge that did it, but Jackson "Jacko" Baker and Ryan Callinan were the crowd favourites on the men's side, and the pair of them came up with a first and a third on a day when a dozen or so young Aussie and Kiwi guns - and a 42-year-old Narrabeen CT veteran in the form of Nathan Hedge - pushed them to the limit.
And in Hedge's case, came second, with New Zealander Billy Stairmand a creditable fourth, a point behind Callinan. A win would have propelled Hedge into the top 9 of the men's Australia/Oceania QS and an entry into the Challenger Series (CS), but instead he finished just outside the line at 12th.
And on the women's side, Merewether's Philippa Anderson - or "Philthy" as the Merewether crew and the commentators all affectionately call her - dropped out in the quarter-finals, but her good friend and fellow surf coach Sarah Baum nearly made it a home-town double, only to be pipped into second place in the dying seconds of the AAP Consulting Women's Pro final by a rampaging Macy Callaghan.
But it was enough to give Anderson 5th position on the Australia/Oceania Qualifying Series (QS), ensuring her entry into the CS and another shot at the top-flight CT.
Sarah Baum did not earn any QS points for her second place, and she finished fifth place on the African QS rankings, when only the top three go into the CS. She is hoping for a WSL wildcard CS entry on the strength of her performance, something endorsed on-air on Sunday by WSL commentator and presentation host Ronnie Blakey.
It was almost the perfect finish, as far as the Newcastle faithful were concerned.
It was also a great thing for Newcastle's - or more particularly Merewether's - chances of securing a CS contest sometime in the not too distant future.
As regular readers of last week's Surfest coverage should be familiar with, the WSL now runs a three-tier calendar of contests across the planet, with the CT at the top, the QS - or the old "grind" as it was called by competitors chasing it all over the place - divided into seven regions, with ours being known as Australia/Oceania.
Bells Beach in Victoria from next week is a CT event.
The CS for this year starts on May 7 with the Gold Coast Pro running until May 15 before the Sydney Surf Pro at Manly from May 17 to 24, before the CS heads to South Africa July 3 to July 10 for the Ballito Pro, before the VANS US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach, California, on July 30 to August 7.
So back to Newcastle yesterday.
As the WSL said, the CT rookie surfed "with incredible confidence all through the event, consistently posting high scores in every heat with the judges rewarding his trademark power hacks and impeccable wave choice".
"Baker saved his best performance until the Final however, posting the highest two-wave total of the entire event, a 15.50 (out of a possible 20) to claim the biggest victory of his career," WSL said.
"To win this event on home turf and be able to dedicate it to my mum and repay the people who put this thing on every year feels amazing," Baker told WSL.
"To have my biggest win and MR (Mark Richards) be on the trophy is crazy.
"I had to think a lot about doing this event but thought it would be a good warm up for Bells and a few of those waves were quite Bells-like so I want to head down there with this confidence and make the cut and bring on the rest of the year. This win means so much to me, my family and my community so I couldn't be happier."
In the women's, winner Callaghan had fallen off the CT at the end of last year, and WSL said she came to Newcastle "unsure of which direction her career might take".
After a win at the Central Coast Pro then backing it up here at Newcastle with another win, Callaghan will be off to the CS as the regional top seed as she looks to re-qualify for the CT.
In the final, she surfed close to the perfect heat, catching only two waves but posting a solid heat total of 14.84 (out of a possible 20) to beat Baum, Kiwi Paige Hareb and Aussie Holly Williams who each locked themselves in a spot on the Challenger Series.
"I feel like I've put in a lot of hard work over the years and to see it come back to me with two wins feels amazing," Callaghan told WSL.
"Especially that they're both so close to my home - that's really special. I've been competing at Surfest since I was 15. I won the cadet cup back then, then I won my first Pro Junior and now this - Newcastle has been good to me.
"This is a great way to finish the QS season and I'm looking forward to heading into the Challenger Series feeling positive and keen to give it a good go."
Callaghan was also runner up at the most recent Surfest, in 2020, losing to Bronte Macauley by 12.80 to 11.24 points.
And so as the winners were chaired up the beach by their friends, surrounded by adoring grommets and the not-so-young, Surfest drew to a close for another year - its 36th.
Surfing, like rock-n-roll, is no younger just a pursuit for the young.
Tom Curren, who won the first Surfest in 1985 on his way to a world championship that year, still surfs like the freakish natural he has always been, and made one of the pandemic's most alluring surf films, Free Scrubber, which is available free online.
And so Jacko and Macy join the history books of one Australian surfing's most storied contests.
And a good time was had by all.
It was great viewing on the screen, where I watched much of the contest to most efficiently and quickly bring the results to you, the readers.
But it was even better viewing from the beach. If you get a chance next year, do yourself a favour, and go.
If you're a surfer who disavows competitions, have a look anyway. You might be surprised.
And if you don't surf, and want to know what all the fuss is about, there's every chance a few minutes at Merewether will show you.
All our surfing content including full Surfest coverage is here.
