Christie and his Rosie Hodge IV - Image ASP / Aquashot

The ASP mid year cut off is looming for the world’s best surfers including New Zealand’s trio of Richard Christie, Billy Stairmand and Jay Quinn.

This being the first time the mid year cut off has occurred, confusion reins over what is about to unfold and what the Kiwis have to do between now and then.

Here are a few vitals.

The cut off occurs after the Quiksilver Pro New York (4-15 Sept).  That means two further World Title events – New York of course but before that the Billabong Pro Tahiti – for which hasty tweets are already predicting a big swell early in the waiting period.

The first event with the newly formed top 32 is the Hurley Pro at Trestles, California.

While our guys aren’t competing in these events, the cut off after New York means that there are four major events left where they can gather enough points.  The events are:

- 6 Star England
- 6 Star France
- 6 Star Spain
- 6 Star Prime Portugal

The key to qualifying is to make it into the top 32 surfers on the ASP World Tour – a massive undertaking.  The remaining four places on the tour are made up of two ASP wildcards and two event sponsor wildcards.

Despite Richard Christie now sitting a mere ten places outside qualification in 42^nd, the points difference is huge.  Ricardo needs to close a 4,818 point gap to qualify.  Billy sits in 50^th needing to bridge a 8,376 gap while Jay sits in 59^th looking to narrow a 9,787 point gap.

A win in a six star event is worth 3,500 points and a win in a prime is worth 6,500 points.  Therefore there is plenty of scope to climb the ratings if the guys place highly at each event.  Nothing short of a seventh at each event will improve Ricardo’s rating and realistically, to make inroads into the gap, he will need to place third (2,080 points in six star event) or better at each of the events for a chance at qualification.

Billy and Jay are both holding four very low scoring results giving them more chance of increasing their points.  However, the two surfers would have to win a couple of events to bridge the gap to the top 32.

There are other factors at play.  The Kiwi guys started to excel in Europe last year so will start to drop decent ratings points.  Jay Quinn placed second at the England event in 2010 while Billy won the Portugal event and Ricardo got a string of quarterfinal or better finishes.  Also factor in that the two World Title events will allow the top 32 surfers a chance to significantly build on their own rating points.  The flip side of that is the top 32 surfers will be focussing on the World Title events making the draw in the star events a little easier to swallow.

If Ricardo can pull out a ninth at the Nike US Open with the majority of the best surfers in the world in attendance then why not a break through win during the most important leg of his career.  Likewise Billy won a six star event in 2010 and Jay has had two runner up placings in the past 12 months so qualification is well within reach.

If all else fails there is always the year end cut off!  Good luck to the boys.