Stephanie Gilmore, Layne Beachley and even the aging Mark Occhilupo dominating the sport for a long period of time.
But that dominance is set to be put to the test in a big way both this year and in the coming seasons with surfers from the USA, Brazil and South Africa all rapidly challenging.
Already this year's world tour sees Kelly Slater and Jordy Smith clearing out ahead of current world champion Mick Fanning in the ratings race with Taj Burrow also seemingly losing ground to the point of not being in contention.
If Mick or Taj don't win the present event running in France, then they pretty much have no chance at all of challenging for the title this year.
An interesting look into the future Australians coming through the ranks of professional surfing will take place in Bali all next week with the ASP World Junior Championships being run at the ideal Keramas River mouth on Bali's east coast.
Australia has five strong surfers qualified for the event headed by Queensland's Mitch Crews but the general feeling among is that Australia's crop of emerging young male surfers are well behind the stars that are emerging from Brazil and South Africa.
Aerial surfing skills seem to be the most defining ingredient and while the young Brazilians are exceptional along with one particular South African in Beyrick De Vries, all five Australians are simply very solid surfers but lack the aerial assortment of moves possessed by their rivals.
With all the high level coaching available and pumped into the young surfers these days it's hard to see why the Australians are lacking this year.
Fortunately for the Australians the girls are fairing way stronger on the international stage. With Stephanie Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons fighting out the world title, we're on top at the highest level while at next week's Oakley World Juniors the next crop of Australian super stars in Tyler Wright and Laura Enever will be favoured to win in Bali.
Four day surf forecast: Look for some reasonable surf today as winds turn offshore all morning with clean waves in the 3 to 4 feet range. The swell will then likely drop further for Friday and Saturday with beachbreaks from 13th to Fairhaven the better options while Sunday should be clean with good waves on beaches and small reefs along the entire Surfcoast.
