In 1959 Linda Benson made her competitive debut in the first West Coast Surfing Championships at Huntington Beach and won the women’s title. She went on to win the world championship in Hawaii in November. Benson collected five U.S. women’s surfing championships between 1959-69. The Encinitas resident was inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame and was named one of the inaugural members of the San Diego Surfing Hall of Fame in 2019.
Reporter George Story profiled Benson for the Union’s Youth page 60 years ago.
From The San Diego Union, Saturday, October 3, 1959:
By George Story
Every afternoon when school is out — and all day on the weekends — Linda Benson gets on her board and waits for the big third wave.
The third wave? What about the seventh or the ninth?
Linda, 15, is the West Coast women’s surfboard champion, and she told me that the third one is the one to wait for.
Linda, small and blond, is a sophomore at Point Loma High. She lives at 2969 Bernard St., Loma Palisades.
Her size and interest in surfing suggests that book and movie “Gidget” might have been written with her in mind.
Two weeks ago Linda entered the West Coast surfing championships in Huntington Beach. It was the first time she had ever entered a contest, and she won.
Now she is getting ready for the international championships, which will be held in November in Hawaii. Linda defeated last year’s international champion, Mrs. Marge Calhoun of Santa Monica — who has a daughter Linda’s age — in the West Coast competition.
Linda is looking forward to the trip and the contest — but she isn’t making any predictions.
HAIR SUNBLEACHED
She and about a dozen of her friends — the boys usually outnumber the girls — go to Ocean Beach or Sunset Cliffs every afternoon for an hour or two.
Linda, a natural blond whose hair is sunbleached almost white, waits for the third swell. When she catches it, she sometimes tries one of the tricks that helped her win her West Coast trophy:
Reverse kick-out: this is done by shooting sideways though the curl (a wave ready to break) and twisting the body in the opposite direction.
Linda credits the reverse kick-out with getting her the points she needed at Huntington Beach. She said Mrs. Calhoun caught more swells than she did, but that the points from the revers offset that.
TRICK HELPS SPEED
Hawaiian pull-out: done by running to the nose of the board, grabbing it and pearling — going under the wave.
Walk the nose: Linda gains speed by standing at the nose as the curl breaks.
Head dip (also el spontaneo): surfer walks the nose, then when the wave is about to break, folds hands behind back and dips head.
Linda (4’11”) and board (8’2″)
(Ed Neil / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Her board is 8 feet, 2 inches long and 20 inches wide. It is made of balsa wood and cost her $75.
She has ordered a polyethylene (compressed plastic foam) board from a Huntington Beach company at $88 for the Hawaii competition.
Linda’s mother and father occasionally watch her surf. Her father is a freezer salesman for Walker Scott Co.
Mrs. Benson is planning to go to Hawaii with Linda.
HER FIRST WAVE
Linda started surfing four years ago, when she was 11, in Encinitas. She remembers the first wave she rode in.
“I had fallen off a lot of them,” she said. “Then I caught a good one and stayed with it. I was really happy.”
When Linda dates, it’s usually one of the boys in the surfing crowd. More often than not, however, the crowd stays together, she said.
They meet at 7 on Saturday and Sunday mornings and spend nearly all day on the boards.
It’s a couple of years away, but Linda plans to go to college — as long as she can stay near the water.
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