Christian Fletcher Just Competed In A QS Event In The Phillipines

“Those guys on the World Tour don’t have fun. I know that for a fact. I did it in ’87 — it was hell. You spend 60 hours traveling from one place to another, live out of a duffel bag and never get to eat home-cooked food. The guys on Tour, they worry too much. They’re always worried.”

That was Christian Fletcher talking to Matt Warshaw in 1990, for the April edition of SURFER. Safe to say, The elder Fletcher brother never really drank from the competitive surfing teat, despite being an obvious generational talent. The year before, at 19, unseeded, he pocketed $30k at the Body Glove Surf Bout at Lowers, defeating the best surfers in the world. 

He was a famous rebel, of course. Credited as the visionary of aerial surfing, believing in it long before anyone else could even stomach the idea.  

So, it comes as some surprise then, that at 55 years old, Christian decided to enter a World Surf League QS event: The 2025 Siargao International Surfing Cup. 

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“I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” said Christian. “When I grew up, we’d never get conditions like this for a surf contest. Everyone’s got big smiles. Everyone’s happy. I just want to get barrelled and launch some airs, and most of all, have fun. Yewwww (throws shaka).”

He seemed in remarkably good spirits and, to put it simply, happy. Christian, and the Fletcher clan as a whole, have been on a busy little run in the surfing world. Greyson and Nathan were both at Stab High Sydney, nephew as competitor, uncle as head judge. The next day, they flew to Bali for the Keris Cup, where they met Christian, then traded tubes during a well-documented Padang Padang session. 

Christian, who owns property in the Phillipines, has since been eliminated from the event.