Kieren Perrow (AUS), 34, has won his inaugural ASP World Tour event, taking out the Billabong Pipe Masters in Memory of Andy Irons over fellow countrymen Joel Parkinson (AUS), 30, in four-to-six foot waves. John John Florence (HAW), 19, also found his way to the podium as the overall winner of the 2011 Vans Triple Crown.

Perrow, who finished runner-up to Jeremy Flores (FRA), 23, in last year’s Billabong Pipe Masters, returned to form again this year and charged the massive Pipeline conditions on the opening two days of competition to solidify his position on the 2012 ASP World Tour. The Australian was equally deadly in the smaller conditions on the final day and commanded the Final against Parkinson in a backdoor shootout to secure his maiden ASP World Tour victory.

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The California city that inspired “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the 1982 comedy film that did much to propagate the laid-back surfer image, is now home to the world’s first Center for Surf Research. And, no, it’s not a clever way for college kids to earn their degrees by hanging out at the beach.

Jess Ponting has heard those jokes. A sustainable tourism professor, he recently founded the first-of-its-kind institute at San Diego State University with the aim of building a database and spreading awareness about what has evolved from a beach counterculture to a multibillion dollar global industry, with both positive and negative impacts. Ponting was amazed to find how little research and critical analysis exists on the surf industry

“We want to quantify exactly what we’re dealing with,” said Ponting, who, on the university’s web site, sports a suit-and-tie while holding a surf board. “I think it’s way bigger than anybody gives it credit for, but no one has taken it seriously enough to look at it before.”

Decades ago, long-haired surfers chasing isolated ocean peaks far from the crowded beaches of Australia and California stumbled into remote villages from Indonesia to Latin America and kicked off the global phenomenon. Today, so many surfers are traveling the globe in pursuit of that perfect swell that surf tourism is being seen as a top income-generator for nations from Papua New Guinea to Liberia, Ponting said. Even China has created a so-called Minister for Extreme Sports to dive in on the booming business.

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visit the school’s site http://csr.sdsu.edu/