He's even good at crowd surfing

Photo © 2011 AFP / Kirstin Scholtz / ASP

Often left out of the ‘best sportsman of all time’ debate, Kelly Slater’s incredible achievements are undeniable.

Since joining the world tour in 1990, he was won a record 11 ASP world titles, 48 individual ASP tour titles and become both the youngest and the oldest surfer to become World Champ (at 20 and 39 respectively).

And now he’s back, wacking on the wettie for a tilt at Number 12.

Slater will be one of the surfers paddling to take on the first event of the ASP World Tour at the Gold Coast this Saturday, hoping to get the season off to a good start against one of the strongest fields in recent memory.

While Gold Coast crowds will definitely get to see the master in action, Slater still hasn’t decided on whether he will surf out the entire World Tour season this year, preferring to take it event by event.

"There have been years when this approach has been a little frustrating, but it's also sort of a wild-card way of deciding," Slater said in an interview to USA Today.

"I'll go by feel and whatever feels right internally, I'll stick with that."

Gnarly dude.

We’ll be speaking to Kelly about whether he thinks a dozen’s doable tonight on The Project.