When winter pulls the trade winds straight down the channel and the North Pacific flings a solid swell into Oahu’s North Shore, there is no place on earth that hums with that same raw frequency. Pipeline is the epicenter, and the 2024 Pipe Masters served up a session that will echo through the surf history books for years to come. The conditions were beyond ideal—eight-to-twelve-foot faces, light offshore winds combing the lip into razor-sharp lines, and a low tide that opened up the barrel section like a cathedral door. The crew that paddled out was stacked, but one man’s name kept rising above the foam: John John Florence.
From the early morning heats, it was clear that John John had his eyes locked on that iconic Billabong trophy. He opened his Round of 32 heat with a backhand tube ride that had the judges scrambling for double digits. He dropped in late, pulled into a hollow canyon that spit him out with his board still under his feet and his smile wider than the Ala Moana Bowl. The crowd on the beach erupted. This was the kind of surfing that reminds you why Pipeline is the proving ground for world titles. But John John wasn’t the only one cooking out there. Ethan Ewing, fresh off a runner-up finish in the WSL Finals, showed why his rail game translates perfectly into heavy lefts. His forehand snaps on the open face were surgical, but he struggled to find that deep barrel time that separates the Pipe Masters from every other contest.
The quarterfinals tightened the field. Barron Mamiya, the local Boy from Pupukea, drew on his entire childhood spent drifting inside the reef curve. He threaded a wave that looked like it was going to detonate on his head, pulling in with his back foot skimming the foam ball and emerging untouched. That ride alone might have won him the heat, but Jack Robinson answered back with a bomb of his own. Jack’s style is all torque and aggression—he throws his body into the tube with almost reckless commitment. The two traded blows like prizefighters, but in the end it was John John’s experience in the waning minutes that pushed him through to the semifinals.
The semifinal against Griffin Colapinto was a high-water mark for modern Tube riding. Griffin had been building momentum all week, his forehand carve on the open face as clean as any surfer in the draw. But John John’s backhand barrel mastery is next-level weird. He can stall, accelerate, and read the shifting pillow of the barrel with a sixth sense. In the dying seconds of the heat, he slipped into a wave that looked like it was going to go double-overhead. The commentators lost their voices as he emerged—not just dry, but with his hand trailing across the face of the wave as if he owned the entire ocean. The judges gave him a 9.87. It was the highest single-wave score of the event.
The final was set: John John Florence versus Jordy Smith. Jordy, the veteran charger from South Africa, had been surfing with a chip on his shoulder all week. He’d eliminated Kelly Slater in the Round of 16, a moment that felt symbolic as the scales tipped toward a new generation. Jordy’s power surfing is a beauty to behold—those long, drawn-out turns that compress and explode—but at Pipeline the judge’s eyes are always drawn to the tube. And John John was pulling in deeper, more critical sections. He locked in a pair of excellent scores early, leaving Jordy needing a combination of waves that never quite materialized.
When the final horn sounded, John John raised his arms and let out a howl that echoed off the lava rock. The 2024 Pipe Masters belonged to him. It was his third win at the venue, but this one felt different. It wasn’t just the prize money or the points. It was the way he surfed—no fear, no hesitation, just pure flow. The win also tightened up the world title race, making it clear that the Hawaiian surfers are not just contenders, they are the guardians of this wave. The rest of the season will hinge on mental game and wave selection, but for one afternoon at Pipeline, John John Florence reminded everyone why surfing’s most famous wave still demands total respect.
The stoke from that event will linger like the scent of salt and coconut oil on a late December afternoon. The 2024 Pipe Masters was more than a contest. It was a celebration of why we paddle out, why we chase swell, and why we spend our lives trying to fit inside a moving wall of water.
