The objective scoring system—also called the points-per-maneuver system, or the Hang Ten system—was created as an alternative for the subjective system, which is the way we're doing it today. Objective scoring was invented in 1972. It was used here and there for about five years, in both professional and amateur contests, then disappeared.

On one hand, you can see where contest organizers would want to codify and more or less remove human judgment from the way a contest is scored. Every move a competitor made on a wave, from takeoff to kickout, had a point value; that value went up according to the size of each wave. "Trim" on a "Wave Size 1" (small) wave got you seven points. "Re-entry Radical" on a "Wave Size 4" (large) got you a whopping 160 points. You gathered up points by stringing moves together, and your point total was for all waves ridden during a heat. It made sense, kinda. It was like turning kids loose in a field during an Easter egg hunt, and the person who gathers up the most candy wins. It also makes sense, sorta, in view of how much shit all the surfers, even the top pros, were heaping upon the subjective system at the time. (Some things never change.)

On the other hand, the objective system was clunky as hell, eliminated all the tension and excitement of whittling down the field toward a final heat, and encouraged fast-motion herky-jerky surfing. The fact that objective scoring lasted five years is amazing.

This unattributed article ran in the July 1975 issue of SURFER and was likely written by publisher Steve Pezman.

Before surf contests were a formal, big, organized deal, they occurred naturally. Guys would choose each other off, select judges, and set a time and place to meet. The news would flash through school that so-and-so was going to have a contest with so-and-so, and both amused and serious friends would end up on the beach, witnessing the duel for the trip of seeing who won. The judges casually scanned the whole bit and came up with "who looked the best." The loser rarely thought he had lost, and the winner was king for a day. Girlfriends on the beach, woodies—1958 was a pretty enthusiastic time for the sport.

The Makaha Championships was the only event happening in those days, and then came Huntington and the U.S. Championships, and all the rest. The whole contest scene got very heavy. And even heavier when the Hawaiian winter circuit began to bloom and MONEY was paid to the winner. During this whole transition period, the contests were all basically judged in the same way as those early surf-offs on the beach, the only difference being 1-to-20 points per wave system was used. But you still had a bunch of guys sitting up on platforms and deciding who they thought looked best.

In the mid-'60s there was some creative thinking done on the subject by Tom Morey. His popular noseriding contests picked a winner with a stopwatch. Whoever spent the most time on the nose won. There was no argument, and the specialized nature of the event stimulated new board ideas. But the event lost its basis when noseriding faded.

In 1973, George Downing got together with Duke Boyd and Dick Graham of Hang Ten Swimwear and came up with a concept for a more objective scoring system. During their late-night sessions in George’s shop in Honolulu, some interesting ideas evolved.

Each maneuver accomplished on a wave was given a point value relative to their difficulty. Wave-size at each event would be divided into small, medium, large and extra-large. The bigger the wave you rode, the more points you got for your maneuvers. As a surfer rode, a judge would call off the wave size at takeoff, and a scorer would call off the maneuvers as the surfer performed them. As the heat progressed, each surfer would have a running total of points scored. A heat’s length would be determined by a set amount of scored rides as determined by the judge prior to the start of the contest, taking into consideration the present wave conditions. If one surfer rode more waves than the others—well, that was part of the game.

There would be two rounds, so each surfer would surf twice. At the end, the surfer with the most combined points wins. No one is eliminated along the way. Right up to the end, everyone has at least a chance to overtake the leader.

In big-wave conditions, like Hawaii, losing your board during a heat usually meant you were done for. A really quick swim in and paddle back out, with everything going right, takes at least 20 minutes, so by the time you’re back in the lineup position, you're dusted. With the new system, contestants were allowed a three-man "pit crew," which would sit in the channel with spare boards. This brought a lot of possible strategies into play. Your pit crew could become actively involved in helping to line you up. You could swap and boards during the heat for different types of situations. If you were behind in points, for example, and it was getting late, you could try a higher scoring, more difficult trip. Or you could sit inside and catch lots of smaller, lower scoring waves, then switch boards and move outside for some big points but less frequent rides. Meanwhile, contingency prizes have become part of the game. Longest tube ride, highest scored wave, etc., etc. At present, the surfers are not fully taking advantage of all the possible strategies—that will take some time to evolve.

The whole point is to eliminate a subjective judgment of style from the judging criteria. What you have left is a whole new game, which is a hard fact for some surfers to understand. Jeff Hakman, winner of both this year's and last year’s Hang Ten American Pro events, and the leading pro money winner, has obviously been very successful in analyzing the whole scene and adapting his surfing to fit it.

Here's an interesting spinoff idea. How about an international pro circuit based on Downing’s system, with the overall champ being the guy who scored the most total points for the year?

Philosophically, the whole arrangement poses questions. Does this format warp pure just-for-fun surfing into an artificially active style? Perhaps. Isn’t the system really still based on subjective judgments of wave size, and what a maneuver looks like, and was it accomplished? The answer is Yes.

Probably the fairest thing that can be said about the system is that it has definitely proven itself workable and that surfers now know what to expect as far as judging. Some contestants had preplanned and well-coordinated pit crews, while others were last-minute deals put together on the beach.

The objective system is being used in Australia now, as well as Hawaii, and being considered elsewhere. Whether or not it becomes widely accepted remains to be seen. But it’s definitely a far cry from the old beach surf-offs.

"THE SECOND YEAR FOR A NEW SYSTEM" - THE WEIRD PRACTICALITY OF OBJECTIVE SCORING IN 1974

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