“From Cheeky Grom To The Best Surfer In The World”

Can you imagine putting your surfboard in a museum next to the tools of Mark Richards, Tom Carroll, Layne Beachley, Stephanie Gilmore, Mick Fanning, and the litany of past Australian world champions?

“I got goosebumps,” launched Molly Picklum as she slid her crisp DHD next to Tyler Wright’s. “That is so weird!” 

What’s so cool about that moment is seeing how genuinely thrilled the 2025 world title winner is to be in this company. The former high-energy grom from North Shelly truly appreciates the rare air she occupies. That is just one of the takeaways from Molly’s Way, a new film produced by Surfing Australia that highlights her character, background, and her remarkable run to the 2025 world title. It’s narrated by Vaughan Blakey and layered with insights and laughs from manager Ryan Fletcher, close friend Kobie Enright, sparring partners Hughie and Joel Vaughan, former coach Glen “Micro” Hall, and Kelly Slater himself. 

Molly has come a long way from the hyperactive grom suited in the car before dawn on the Central Coast. But in some respects, the 23-year-old is still the same energizer bunny she was at 12, just with a stronger frontside hook and a galling amount of tropical tubes over her belt. She claims it’s for the best. 

“My mom would openly say she was nervous for me growing up. If I didn’t use sports and went into the party scene, it was going to end bad,” Molly chuckled. “I’m just an intense person, if I didn’t put (energy) into a good, healthy space, it could have been tragic.”

“It felt like she was one of the boys,” Hughie Vaughan said. “She’d always give everyone shit, everyone would give her shit. She’d take it like a champ. You could definitely see she was going to be gnarly. She’d always come out to the reefs at home and go on big ones. Everyone wasn’t pushing her too hard, but everyone was there for her. You could see in her eyes she wanted to be the best.”

Confidence is such an overused term in sports, but it truly captures Molly’s style as a person and surfer. An illustrative anecdote that stands out comes from Micro, her longtime mentor and coach, who saw Molly eat it at the bottom of a thick Pipeline left and stuck in the reef during a freesurf. She came in, took a few breaths, then paddled back out. Micro was floored. “She wasn’t a born big-wave lunatic,” he said. “She developed those skills to back herself. She wants to get after it, flirt on that edge of fear, lean in and see what happens. To me, they’re the traits that make a champion.”

After a slew of lackluster finishes to end 2024, Molly parted ways with Micro and opted to do the tour on her own program. Micro didn’t sweat it, and enjoyed sitting back and watching Molly make five finals and get to least the quarters in every event except one. “I’d learned so much from Glen, it was like, thank you so much, now I just want to go see what I can do with that,” Molly said. “I wanted to see where my brain would go with no parameters.”

You know how it ends. Three heats with Caroline Marks at Cloudbreak. A party in Tavarua. A tearful reunion in her home town. The grom becomes the champ. Cheek definitely still intact. 

“Most of Australia can resonate with her because they feel that connection with an Aussie larrikin having a crack,” Micro concluded. “People connect with her because she can have a laugh and strap the head gear on and get after it. There’s something special in that.”