“My friends on tour, they trip out [at] how much I think and how much I’ve got going on,” she says. “I’m pretty much in my head 24 hours a day.”

“That’s Molly’s biggest challenge,” Hall says. “She’s so eager to learn and so eager to get to where she wants to go that she beats herself up in her head: ‘I’m not doing enough’. Then she goes hard and it’s, ‘I’m doing too much and wearing myself out’.”

Touted for big things since her mid-teens, by Layne Beachley no less, Picklum has no shortage of sounding boards. Mick Fanning, Tyler Wright and Stephanie Gilmore all have plenty of time for her.

Hall considers her more family member than student after being tipped off “by a couple of local groms” that there was a bleach-blonde 14-year-old making waves just down the road at Shelly Beach.

Given Picklum also has retired tennis champion Ash Barty in her phone, it’s not all that surprising that the simplest, most frustrating pursuit of all dragged her out of that South African funk.

“She came in that day and the convo was, ‘Just let it go. Trust that you’re an incredible surfer and your career’s on track – you don’t need to force this improvement’,” Hall says.

“We put the boards down and went and played some golf, even though she’d never played. And then this almost addictive side of her brain latched onto golf and, suddenly, it was all about her golf swing 24/7. It was amazing. Surfing became easy again and she got it back so quickly.”

Picklum now seeks Barty out whenever she’s on the Gold Coast and plans to play rounds for cash. But only once she can see herself matching Barty’s handicap of four.

“She’s not afraid to step up and ask anyone a question if there’s something to be learnt,” Hall says of Picklum’s enviable list of sporting contacts. “She’s fearless when it comes to, ‘What have you got? What can I learn from you?’

“There’s also this infectious personality that people are open to because of just who she is. People gravitate towards her, those chats and advice just happen organically around Molly. She just attracts people and their support.”

Hall and Picklum know that support, and the spotlight, can and will snowball with each performance.

It’s a daily conversation, in between “the planning, surfing and piss-taking”, either in-person or down the line as Picklum enters next month’s Rip Curl Pro in Peniche, Portugal, sharing the world No.1 jersey with five-time world champion Carissa Moore.

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By April the tour rolls onto home turf at Bells Beach and Margaret River, the scene of the mid-year cut once more.

Only a minor calamity will make it an issue for Picklum this time around. She’s got bigger fish to fry. And be it Moore, Wright or Gilmore – who between them have swept the world titles since 2006 – Picklum is remarkably, refreshingly bullish about taking them on.

“Surfing-wise, I do feel like I can compete with the best in the world,” Picklum says. “And then competitive-wise, you’ve just got to make that shift when it’s your idols. They’re the best in the world and there’s a reason for it. It’s because they don’t want to lose.

“They’re not going to take it easy on you. Beating people like that, who are so intelligent when it comes to competition and strategy, and they’re also the strongest women surfers in the world, that gets me excited.”