“I want to rip your head off”.
Molly Picklum reckons she says it – without saying it – whenever she enters the water with one of her best mates. The bigger the waves, the higher the stakes, the better.
The more Picklum wants to rip Caity Simmers’ head off.
Great surfing theatre. Undermined slightly a minute later by Picklum taking the jet-lagged world champion by the hand and chirping “come on Caity, we’re getting a photo together”.
There they go. The salty, freckled rivalry already re-defining women’s surfing, with the promise to keep doing so for another decade.
Literally skipping down the steps at Bells Beach, hand-in-hand, for a photo opp that repeatedly breaks out in hysterics.
Simmers, 19, learnt to surf under the Oceanside Pier that made California’s DogTown and Z-Boys revolutionary skate crew of the ’70s famous.
Picklum, 22, grew up 15 minutes from the beach in Berkley Vale on the NSW Central Coast, and has had names like Ash Barty and Stephanie Gilmour in her phone since long before she graduated from high school.
The pair have been tight for years as teenage surf prodigies. They could never ride another wave in their life and still be forever bound by one of the great days in women’s surfing history. It was heaving, firing, 2.5-metre Pipeline, on February 12, 2024, and was surfed expertly by a generation better-versed in big waves than any that has come before it.
Picklum nailed a perfect 10, the first by a woman at the feared Banzai break. But Simmers beat her in the final and in one of the great mic-drop moments, told the world: “Pipeline [is] for the f—ing girls. That’s all I have to say.”
Alongside her, Picklum hooted and hollered for Simmers’ victory. Their achievement in Hawaiian waters, where women simply weren’t welcome for so long, had quickly dawned on her after a day of incredible, heavy-wave surf.
Only a few years earlier, Picklum got her start on the Championship Tour by taking the spot Simmers had knocked back at age 16 to stay in school. The Australian is yet to beat Simmers on tour, though not for lack of trying. Or shit stirring.
“Caity and I, it is a rivalry for sure,” Picklum says.
“Competitively, it absolutely is. We don’t take it anywhere past the rashie at all, though. I have so much fun with it, to be honest. I don’t know about her, I think, or I hope she plays off it as much as I do. I lean into it because it’s fun.”
Simmers is far more circumspect. Though being far more comfortable behind the camera rather than in front of it (she edited and directed her first surf film at age 17) is probably at play.
Best of frenemies: Molly Picklum and Caity Simmers.Credit: Justin McManus
“Molly’s beaten me, don’t worry. People just don’t know about it, but she has beaten me,” Simmers says.
“I remember it and I’m never going to take it easy when I’m out there in a heat with her.”
Already, their one-on-one heats and year-long fight for world titles have been likened to the enthralling, decade-long duel between Gilmore (eight titles) and longtime Hawaiian sparring partner Carissa Moore (five), which only just ended with the latter’s retirement.
For her part, the spotlight that shines on Simmers as surfing’s youngest ever world champion sits uncomfortably with the 158-centimetre introvert.
Picklum jokes that she’ll happily take that spotlight off her hands.
“At the back end of the year when it counts – as world champion,” she says.
A tad fatigued by long-haul travel from the El Salvador Pro that only finished last weekend, Simmers brightens at questions of what she’s reading – “a book on Buddhism” and another on New Journalism pioneer Joan Didion – and where she’s been hiking – Lake Tahoe and Big Sur.
Basically, anything that isn’t about being a world No.1 surfer, with the responses of a 19-year-old still “figuring out where I sit in the world”.
“Out of the water, my world’s changed for sure,” she says.
Popular with the punters: Caity Simmers greets the fans on day one of the Bells Beach Pro.Credit: Justin McManus
“I live in a surf town and everyone knows that I’ve won a world title. There’s no hiding that, and I do get treated differently, not necessarily good or bad, but it’s definitely different. There’s a lot more cameras pointed at my face, there’s a lot more interviews.
“And for me, that forces me to be confident in myself a little bit, to do stuff like that isn’t natural for me. You worry about how you’re perceived and what people are seeing in you.
“Balancing being myself away from that, I have to work at detaching myself from that, I do find myself figuring out who I am a bit.
“I’m 19 years old and it’s a lot to have this heat around me, the cameras and things. I have to deal with that, and at the same time I’m trying not to worry about it. I have good people around me that remind me this stuff doesn’t matter too much.
“The things that matter to me don’t have too much to do with the spotlight. Even if I wasn’t a world champion or a pro surfer, I’d still be a surfer. I’d still hang out with my friends. I’d still be me.”
A thrilling win over Picklum in the Abu Dhabi wave pool, and four straight top-five finishes leading into the Bells Beach Pro, suggest Simmers is handling the pressure well enough.
Picklum, meanwhile, is undoubtedly the more outgoing of the pair, but not immune to introspection either.
The world No.3 has long focused on the mental side of her sport for an edge, and this year has started working with mindset coach Ben Crowe, whose Rolodex of clients includes Barty, Gilmore and wheelchair tennis great Dylan Alcott.
Picklum and Simmers embrace after the American prevailed in a tense final in Abu Dhabi.Credit: World Surf League via Getty Images
She likes the psyche-up tactics Gilmore, one of the world’s nicest people in or out of the water, would use before a heat in her younger days.
“This girl has personally wronged me”, Gilmore would tell herself, creating flagrantly false, in-depth narratives in her head to gain a competitive edge.
“I might start making up those little stories! That’s so hard to do, though. Everyone’s so nice and respectful to each other on tour,” Picklum says.
“Sometimes I wish I could take on the boys, because then I actually could steer into ‘that person took my wave!’
“But I have my own motivation for competition. I battle myself a lot in the water. I dangle a carrot where I beat myself or what I’ve done before, rather than making it about someone else.”
Except perhaps, in the biggest moment of her career to date.
Neither Picklum nor Simmers can truly comprehend exactly how much history they were making when they charged those heaving Pipeline barrels together, a year ago.
“Absolutely not,” Simmers laughs. “I could barely breathe because I was so scared out there. There was no, ‘how cool is this?’ Definitely no, ‘this could be big for women’s surfing’.”
Nor Picklum. Until her then-coach Glen Hall told her to take a moment, and take it all in, back on the sand.
“(World No.9) Bettylou [Sakura] Johnson and I paddled out together for a crazy semi-final,” Picklum says.
Molly Picklum shoots down the line on day one of the Bells Beach Pro.Credit: Justin McManus
“We watched all these barrels in the heat before us, these pumping Pipe barrels, and we looked each other in the eye. I could just see mutual respect because we were taking on a pretty heavy situation.
“The exact same thing happened with Caity in the final. There’s this mutual respect in the water, and this little heart-to-heart you have, without saying anything. But you’re saying ‘I want to rip your head off’ just before a heat. That’s such a memorable moment for me.
“That’s so cool that we have this thing in the ocean, which is so much bigger than anyone or anything.
“We’re getting barrelled, there’s rainbows over the waves, it’s a special moment. And you share it with someone you’re great friends with.
“But you want to bury them like nothing else.”
