John Florence

John Florence was born October 18th, 1992 and has been quietly ripping the waves just a stone’s throw from his house on the North Shore since he was a toddler (literally a toddler). He lives with his mother and two brothers and kicks around the red clay dirt tracks and skateboard parks like any Sunset Beach kid, but once he hits the water, Florence exhibits a level of mellow and control in the deadly Pacific swells like no other. If you think he’s just another shredder popping rotations and throwing fins on chest high waves, you got it all wrong.

In one respect, the blond regular footer is a contest surfer. He took 1st at NSSA Nationals Open Mini Grom in 2003, 1st at the NSSA Nationals Open Boy's the next year, and that same year, he took both the NSSA Open Boys and the Explorer Menhune divisions. Fast forward a few years and John Florence was the youngest competitor ever to compete in the Triple Crown at 13 years old. At an age when most kids are popping zits and learning how to cuss, Florence (at 85 pounds) was dropping in on bombs at Haleiwa and months later at Pipeline.

However, his greatest strength lies in his confident, artistic approach to big waves. Part pragmatic, part poetic, Florence threads the massive caves as easy as he spins over the tops of them. Extended carves and rail burying hacks are melded seamlessly into a flow that appears light-years beyond his chronological age. Florence has been traveling the world on his sponsors’ dimes since he was 8 years old and has since paid them back in full with unprecedented media coverage and two Pipeline wins in 2010/11. Surfer Magazine called Florence “…arguably the best 18-year-old surfer in the history of the sport.”