South Island surfer Jack Tyro will captain the country's youngest longboarding squad when he paddles out for New Zealand at the world championships in El Salvador this month.

The Dunedin-based longboarder, who grew up in Sumner, Christchurch, earned a coveted wildcard spot for the first leg of the WSL Longboard Tour in California in July.

His results meant he was currently placed ninth equal in the world.

The 19-year-old was working a regular shift at St Clair's Hydro Surf Shop, when he received the big selection news in June.

"It was a quiet day and I was just sitting there by myself," he said. "I was like, 'Yes, I can do a wee boogie'.

"I had a wee moment to myself, and called Mum and Dad straight away, and I think they had a wee boogie too."

Tyro was proud to captain New Zealand's four-person squad at the ISA World Longboard Championship in El Salvador, with all four members under the age of 20.

"To see those grommies from each corner of New Zealand come together and make that team was actually awesome," he said.

"It's really cool to see my perspective, because I've always been the youngest longboarder in those teams for two years now.

"Even just longboarding around New Zealand, I didn't really have many people my age who were longboarding or even younger than me. It was more like all the older boys kind of keeping me going, pushing me."

Tyro took a break from studying last year to focus on surf competitions and training, but is hitting the books again to become a quantity surveyor, along with competing this year.

He has not always been a longboarder, confessing he has snapped his share of short boards and copped plenty of waves to the head.

Switching to a longboard was an easy choice and required a different mentality - less shred, more flow - and he was also judged on grace, Tyro said.

"Grace is kind of how you can orientate your body or even just match the flow of the wave to how you're surfing it, so making the most of every section going off what the waves dictate," he said.

"Shortboarding is a bit more putting everything you can into almost individual manoeuvres, while linking them."

Surfing New Zealand chair Jimi Higgins said Tyro's achievements were impressive.

"Quite often, longboarding is forgotten about and everyone just focuses on the shortboarding, but Jack is the perfect testament to what our longboarders are capable of," he said.

"Hopefully, that will inspire the next generation of youth coming through to also think about getting into longboarding and the team being such a young team is really impressive to how good they are at performing at longboarding, and Jack is just the pinnacle of that."

Higgins said earning a wildcard for the WSL Longboard Tour was a big deal.

"It's extremely significant. It means that, over all the disciplines of surfing, Jack is our highest-ranked surfer and being on that tour as the wild card is a foot in the door. Hopefully, it will open him up to a permanent place on that tour going forward.

"The whole country is behind him, especially the South Island, Christchurch his hometown and Dunedin, his newfound home."

In August, the World Surf League announced St Clair beach would host a round of the WSL qualifying series and a pro junior competition next year.

Higgins said it was a big year for surfing in the southern city.

"It's the first time we've had four people representing Dunedin in different teams, and it ties in with the 60th anniversary of the club this year and the first time we're bringing a World Surf League event to Dunedin," he said.

"It's a really good time for Dunedin surfing."

After Tyro and his team compete in El Salvador, they will fly to Australia to carve up Bells Beach in Victoria on the second leg of the tour.