Barron Mamiya is among the CT surfers who could salvage their seasons with a strong showing at Pipeline. Photo: Emma Sharon//WSL
As the WSL Championship Tour heads to Portugal next month, some of the surfers will be watching the event at home on their couches. Because of the postseason cut — part of the new-look 2026 format — only 22 men and 14 women will travel to Portugal and Cloud 9.
But for those who didn’t qualify, their seasons aren’t over. All CT surfers will compete in the season finale at Pipeline. Those who missed the postseason have a chance to pass competitors in the rankings and be among the top 22 men or top 14 women to qualify for the 2027 tour.
Regardless of whether a surfer qualified for the postseason or not, the top nine event results count toward a surfer’s season total. Those who made the postseason have the advantage of two extra chances to improve on their standing and can drop their bottom three results. The 12 men and 9 women who did not make the postseason will only be able to drop one result of the 10 events they participated in.
The kicker is that Pipeline is weighted 1.5 times the rest of the events. That is, the winner earns 15,000 points. So a good result at Pipeline can create even more separation from a bad result. And two bad results at Portugal and Cloud 9 would put a postseason surfer in no better standing than if they had missed the postseason.
Barron Mamiya is a great example of a surfer that could utilize Pipe to qualify for the 2027 tour. He missed out on the postseason due to a tiebreaker with Jake Marshall. But he’s won at Pipeline two years in a row, and even a half-decent result could move him up a slot into re-qualification. Alan Cleland, Mateus Herdy, and Crosby Colapinto are other surfers who only need to move up a few spots in the rankings at Pipeline.
On the women’s leaderboard, Anat Lelior, Alyssa Spencer, and Steph Gilmore could use a strong showing at Pipe to break the top-14 threshold.
While those who missed out on the postseason will have the disadvantage of less events on the season, they’ll undoubtedly have more time to rest and prepare than their peers who have to fly around the world, from Europe, to the Philippines, to Hawaii. It will be interesting to see how the non-postseason surfers fare against the rest of the tour at Pipe.
