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For nearly a decade the Pro Wakeboard Tour has been THE pro wakeboarding series to see.  It showcases the very best athletes in the world and this past weekend was no different.  With $30,000 of prize money on the line, the all-new Supra Boats PWT came to Dallas with one historic twist – – Pro Wake Surfing was added to the event!  That’s a big deal.  A really big deal. And I’m completely stoked on what is a huge opportunity for the sport of wake surfing.

The event was pulled with the Supra SE550 boat which is powered by a massive Roush supercharged 575hp Raptor engine!   This is the same boat I have and it’s a beast.  Incredible wave and loaded with creature comforts in the cabin.  I’ve had my boat for just over a week now and it’s insane!

Unfortunately, the weather was not the best.  And I hate to complain because Texas really needed the rain and fortunately our lakes are finally full after almost 5 years of drought.  We got poured on during the competition and considering the challenges of the weather the event went off really well!

The Pro Surf division was stacked.  EVERYONE showed up for this!  Keenan Flegel, Noah Flegel, James Walker, Chris Wolter, the Witherell brothers and more!  Happy to report that I ended up on the podium in 3rd place for this historic event!

This last Thursday was media day and I received some great exposure from various TV and radio stations here in Dallas.

Check out a couple of my interviews HERE and HERE.

Thank you to all my sponsors for supporting me!!  Supra Boats, Day 1 Wake, Hype Surf Co, Futures Fins, Aqua Shop, DFW Surf, and Julian Curry.

I am completely stoked to announce my new boat sponsor – Supra Boats!!!  And I’m thrilled to be a part of their Pro team!  My new boat is the massive SE550 with a Roush supercharged 575hp Raptor engine in it.  This wave will blow your mind!  I’ll be traveling all over the US this summer and hope you’ll come out with me and surf this fantastic boat! Thank you Supra Boats for all your support!!

It’s great to be back in the water after a long winter!  The weather in Texas was crazy cold with more than our fair share of ice and snow.  So it was really fun to start this year’s world series off in one of my favorite cities — Parker, Arizona!!  The Bluewater Resort and Casino played host to the 2015 Supreme Wake Surf Championship.  This event is famous for its “Sombrero Madness” theme which is now 3 years strong.  It all started at the Loreto, Mexico event where in the middle of a wake surf contest a party broke out with sombreros and tequila.  The Supreme event has been put on by Jeff and Judy Walker and they always do a spectacular job.

This year was no different!  The event sold out quickly and riders were only allowed to compete in one division – skim or surf.  Although I do enjoy skimming, my specialty is surf and the division was stacked with a bunch of great riders.  I rode ok on day 1 but absolutely had the ride of my life on day two!  Shuv in, Shuv out, Big Spin and 360 Shuv to name a few of the tricks.  I was stoked on that run!  And it was cool hearing the crowd yelling from the cantina that is right in front of the course.  I ended up in 3rd place for Pro Men’s Surf and brought home a nice wad of cash.

This weekend we’re off to Austin, TX to compete in a new event down there.  Looking forward to getting back behind the boat!

Winter has overstayed its welcome and I’m ready for warmer water and more time on my Day1 Wake surf board!  But I’m stoked that the first competition is just 8 weeks away!  I may not get much practice in prior to it but it’s awesome to have the first competition on the schedule which is the Supreme Wake Surf Championships in Parker, AZ.  I competed there last year in the Outlaw division and can’t wait to be back in the desert as a Pro.  The host hotel is the Blue Water Resort & Casino which has all kinds of fun stuff going on – not to mention its own cable park right there at the marina.  Come join us for a good weekend of fun on the water!  And check back soon to catch up on my schedule for the rest of the season!

I finished up the 2014 season last weekend in Las Vegas at the Wake Surfing World Championships in Las Vegas.  This is an invitation-only event that brings riders in from all around the world to compete for the world title.  I qualified earlier in the season as an Outlaw rider and then after being bumped up to the Pro division I needed to qualify again and was fortunate to do so!

After a second place Pro finish at Nationals last month I was confident with my riding and was really looking to do well at Worlds.  Well, as sometimes happens when competing at the very highest level, things didn’t go exactly as planned and I didn’t ride to my potential. Ended up with a 5th place finish to wrap up a season that has been nothing but incredible on all levels.

I started competing in wake surfing with the goal to be come a professional rider and was blown away to be asked to join the pros in only my SECOND season of competing!  I have shared the podium with the best riders in the world and have enjoyed traveling all over with my great friends in the wake surfing community to compete.

I’m going to spend the off-season working on school, cross training, weigh training and preparing for the 2015 season.  I can’t wait to get started (except for the school part!)!

Thank you to all of my sponsors for helping me make this season unforgettable!   The support and encouragement from them, my friends and family and, of course, my parents mean a lot!

The 2014 USA Nationals took place at Callaway Gardens this past weekend and it was a blast.  For those of you not familiar with this venue it is the legendary location of the Masters waterski tournament that has been going on since 1959. This is probably my favorite venue of all the competitions I have been to.  It has stadium seating right over the edge of the lake and completely covered with the pavilion roof – think going to Sea World and sitting watching a show!  Very cool.

Anyway, this event sold out in like an hour this year – it’s popular among wake surfers!  Everyone was there and the competition was strong.  This event gave us the opportunity to ride for 3 days – two days of qualifying and then a cut to 5 riders for the finals on day three.  I was stoked to have two good days of riding up front which landed me in second place going in to the finals.

Sunday was finals and I had another great day.  Landed my surf style 3-shuv among other tricks.  What made this day extra special was the fact that it was my 15th birthday!  And I got the best present ever by winning 2nd place in Pro Men’s Surf!! The icing on the cake was during the podium ceremony they stopped to sing happy birthday while I was standing on the podium! So very cool and a great example of how fantastic this community of wake surfers really is.

Next stop: Las Vegas for the World Championships!

It’s been a busy two weeks with back-to-back competitions.  Last week in Texas and now this week up in Seattle, WA area.  The Northwest Wakesurf Association put on their 6th annual competition on Tye Lake in Monroe, WA, and like last year, it was a good one. The lake is small with no other boats allowed so conditions were great.  Supra Boats was the main sponsor and not only did they provide the tow boats but they provided some sweet breakfast goodies to kick the morning off.  My surf board sponsor, Day1 Wake, was another one of the sponsors. Speaking of Day1 Wake, I’ve been interested in getting into riding a skim board and they made me a super sick skim board to try out this week.  Loved it!  I’m lucky to have Bryce and Jonathan putting not only cool looking but high performance boards under my feet.

So with my new skim board in hand and my trusty surf board I was ready to compete in Pro Skim and Pro Surf.  The Wake9 crew was there to broadcast which is always nice.  Friends and family that couldn’t make the event were able to watch the broadcast on the internet.  They also save the entire broadcast for viewing online at any time too – awesome! Saturday was the qualifying rounds for both Pro divisions.  I had a really good run in surf style and landed a couple of my shuv tricks, air reverse, different types of aerials with grabs and topped it off with a Big Spin.  Although last week I was able to land the surf style 360-Shuv, it was not in the cards for me this weekend.  Gave it a shot and slipped off the board on landing.  My surf run put me through to the finals on Sunday.

My skim run was just ok.  I haven’t been riding a skim board for long but I’m eager to improve.  I was able to land a few decent tricks but it wasn’t enough to get me through to the finals for skim.  Aaron Witherell, Grant Witherell and James Walker all laid down impressive skim runs.

But the good news is I was able to win first place in the Pro Men’s Surf division!  It was my first, FIRST place win as a pro and to make things really cool the event paid out the prize money in a big wad of cash!  Sweet!

Now I’m going to spend the rest of this week hanging out with my pro surf buddies, Grant Witherell, Aaron Witherell and Chris Wolter in Washington.  We’re going to ride surf boards, skim boards, skate boards and any other kinds of boards we can find!

Thanks to everyone that worked hard to put on a great event and congratulations to all the competitors in each division:  Juniors, Masters, Amateurs, Outlaws and Pros.  I had a great time with everyone!

This past weekend was a big one for me.  The most recent stop in the CWSA World Series of WakeSurfing was in Texas down at the Texas Ski Ranch.  I was entered to compete as an Outlaw rider but was asked to move up into the Pro division.  Although nervous, I accepted the challenge and now, after the fact, I’m so glad I did!  I won 2nd place in Men’s Pro Surf and was able to share the podium with two guys I have looked up to for a long time:  Keenan Flegel and James Walker – both huge studs in this sport!

So I’m happy to say that I have reached the goal of being a Professional Wake Surfer and look forward to competing in all future events as a Pro!  Can’t wait to participate with such a talented and cool group of guys!

Thanks to all my sponsors and family for supporting me to do what I love to do!

The podium picture below shows me with Keenan and James.  So sick!!

Malibu Boats puts on a number of events around the country to promote wake boarding and wake surfing.  The Malibu crew came to Texas last month and I stopped in to compete in their small competition and to do some wake surfing with their Pro team rider Johnny Stieg.  Johnny is a great guy and we had some fun mixing it up behind the boat in some different ways.  You don’t see tandem dual 360s every day! Check out the video!

http://vimeo.com/101112237

I thought it would be fun to take one specific trick and perform it on 4 different types of boards – all in one day! One challenging trick that applies to all 4 of the sports is a 360 Shuv-It.  So we out to the Brazos River yesterday and filmed the trick on a wake skate, a skim board and finally my surf board.  Then, we headed up to Aqua Shop to shoot the trick on a flow board.  Thanks to Aqua Shop team for all their support of my flow boarding! So this little project was a lot of fun!  Check it out!