Margaret River has been going off. After a dismal start to the first two events of the season, Margaret River and Mother Nature ganged up on the WSL and threw a fast ball for the Drug Aware Pro.
Round 4 of the Drug Aware Pro was what professional surfing should be: 10 foot faces groomed by a breezy offshore. It’s where the best surfers in the world really shine. It’s hard to shine, after all, when the waves are shit.
One of the standouts of the day was John John Florence. His confidence in real waves seems to be nearly unparalleled, and the scores reflected that. In the first heat of round four, the Hawaiian pulled down a 9.50.
Then Julian Wilson found himself hammering out a near-perfect heat a little while later–in his round five heat against Owen Wright, the Australian scored a 19.06 heat total, the second highest of the contest.
But let’s take a moment to look back at the earlier rounds, the ones where The Box exploded. So did a lot of the competitors, especially in the third round:
And of course, when there is mayhem, there’s always a bit of magic. Kelly Slater (as he does) pulled out his wand and conjured up a perfect 10 on this wave:
And the greatest thing about the Margaret River event? Well, it’s looking like it’s just going to get bigger. “Very solid, back-to-back SW groundswells prevail on Wednesday and Thursday, easing a bit on Friday,” said the forecasters. “Another very strong SSW groundswell looks possible for Saturday, and could be even larger than the surf for Wed/Thur. Morning wind conditions look favorable for the next few days, with some periods of side or onshore flow in the afternoons.”
