Sunny Garcia
Sunny Garcia
Sunny Garcia is a professional surfer from Westside of Oahu, Hawaii, who is often regarded as a fierce competitor with the record of most WQS event wins. He was born in Ma’ili on 14th January 1970 as Vincent Sennen Garcia. He grew up in Wai’anae and after finishing his school, he took part in the 1986 Gotcha Pro at Sandy Beach, Oahu for the first time. Garcia won the event beating the previous champion, Tom Carroll. Some of his top accomplishments are winning the 2000 ASP WCT World Champion, having the record of most WQS event wins (22), six titles of Triple Crown of Surfing, and he is the second surfer to win 1 million dollars! He retired in 2005 but made a comeback in 2008. Today, he aspires to win the ASP World Tour.
Personal Life and Surfing Career
Sunny Garcia had a hard time growing up. His parents got divorced when Garcia was very little. He then lived with his mother in Mā’ili 
which is nearby the beach. Surfing was initially an escapeway for Garcia to avoid the hardships at home. However it soon became his passion. At the age of 17, he debuted and won his first title, a 1986 WCT event. In the following years, he continued to achieve top ranks in various competitions. In 1995, he got the third position in Pipeline Masters finishing behind Kelly Slater and Rob Macahdo. Afterwards, Garcia gained a lot of weight and his career rapidly declined. It looked as if Garcia’s period was over. Four years later, things took a turn for the better and Garcia started to work out. Inspired by Mark Occhilupo, he got rid of all the extra pounds and moved to Kauai where he began to surf with the Irons brothers, Andy and Bruce. In 2000, Garcia got his big break. He won the first two ASP WCT events in Australia and one in Brazil. He also won the fifth Triple Crown title in Hawaii. Slowly he moved into the top tens in numerous events and was determined to win the WQS series. 2009 did not prove to be a good year for Sunny and he also had a knee surgery. In 2010, he got ranked 67th in the new ASP World Rankings and was formally introduced into the Surfing Walk of Fame at Huntington Beach.
Garcia’s personality has been the subject of interest for many years. Some people claim he can be very volatile while others depicted him as a very friendly person. He is known to be a fierce surfer who lashes out his anger during riding the waves. His anger is one of the main reasons for his success. Garcia married for the third time in 2008 to Colleen McCullough and has three kids from his first marriage.
