Born and raised in Santa Barbara California. When I was 6 my mom and dad took me to the beach one day where I saw people surfing. I wanted to try it so my parents got me a surfboard for Christmas. No one in my family has ever surfed so I began to learn on my own. I loved surfing so much that at 8 years old I stopped playing other sports and decided I only wanted to surf from then on. I did the NSSA from 12 years old until 17 and I won 7 National Titles. I turned Pro and chased the WQS at 17. When I was 19 I broke my shoulder, collarbone, and scapular surfing in San Clemente and I was unable to surf for a year. Three years after being back on the WQS I qualified for the WCT. I finished 5th, 8th, 9th, and 10th and had 4 WCT wins; two wins were at Teahupoo, Tahiti and 2 wins were at Mundaka, Spain. I was Rookie Of The Year the first year I was on tour. I won every WCT Final I have ever competed in.
After my fifth year on The World Tour the ASP decided to change the surfing format to a tennis format since a lot of the surfers and ASP employees were all huge tennis fans. They all said it would be great for the sport and bring more fans to surfing. I did a live webcast interview saying how the ASP and the competing surfers have ruined surfing because they are all Tennis Wanna Be’s and they need to change the tour back to the way it was and has been for years.
Since I did this interview live for people to see and negatively criticized the ASP, they kicked me out of the event and disqualified me from competing in any ASP sanctioned event for a year. I would have to pay thousands of dollars to compete in an ASP event once my year ban was up. Two months after my interview the ASP crowned The World Champion too early after a fan observed that they had miscalculated and the world title had not yet been won. So the ASP had to take The World Title back because they messed up the points due to their new tennis format. Eventually The World Champion was crowned and afterwards the ASP ended up changing the tour format back to what I was saying it should be in New York when I was banned.
Since being kicked out of the ASP events for stating my opinion, which was right, I have loved my change of life. Traveling a little bit and surfing for the enjoyment of it, I now get to surf at home and take trips here and there. I love surfing, it has changed my life and given me a life I never knew existed and for that I am very thankful. I have met great people all around the world and without surfing I can say I don’t know where I might be.
- Bobby Martinez
