Hurley Pro Surf Showdown Expected to Draw Thousands

The world's best surfers are heading to Lower Trestles at San Onofre State Beach starting this Sunday for the 2011 Hurley Pro competition.

The lineup includes local resident Patrick Gudauskas and consistent champ Kelly Slater, as well as dozens of other stars who will face off in a series of heats from Sunday through Sept. 24.

The Hurley Pro is the big surfing event that bookends the summer, which led off with the Nike Lowers Pro.

Look to San Clemente Patch next week for coverage of the event—our freelancer Jackie Connor will be out on the sand later in the week as the competition heats up.

According to a release from Hurley, the 2011 Hurley Pro is one of the critical Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour events on mainland U.S. shores.

In the current world title race, Australian Joel Parkinson is barely leading South African Jordy Smith, but 10-time world champ Slater is still in the hunt for what would be an unprecedented 11th world title, the release states.

According to the release, last year's Hurley Pro set a record, offering the single largest first-place and overall prize purse in ASP World Tour history: a $105,000 first-place prize and $400,000 overall. The amount of this year's first-place check has yet to be determined.

Hurley Pro will be live-streaming the event via webcast, offering multiple angles and in-water cameras. We will link there. The Hurley is also offering an iPhone and iPad app for the event to allow mobile viewers to watch the event live.

The de-facto Twitter hashtag for tweets from the event is #HurleyPro, if you want to follow through that network—we'll be tweeting, and surely many hundreds of others will as well.

Read our extensive coverage of the Nike Lowers Pro here.