Jamie O'Brien Calls Palm Spring Surf Club "Best Wave Pool I've Ever Surfed"
The announcement that the Palm Springs Surf Club would be opening its doors to the public in January 2024 seized the surf world's collective attention this week. The project has in development for several years now and is the first surf park to open in the Coachella Valley. And with the wave-generating technology engineered by Tom Lochtefeld, who started building wave pools in the early '90s, the surf in Palm Springs is already getting rave reviews from top pros around the world, including notables such as Hawaii's Jamie O'Brien and Mason Ho, California's Parker Coffin and Brazilian world champ Italo Ferreira.
All of those surfers have been along for the ride as the Palm Springs Surf Club started construction on the site of an old Wet 'n Wild water park and an initial test wave was built. Three years down the tracks, the wave's ready for prime time and O'Brien couldn't be more stoked on how it turned out.
"This did such a cool job on this pool," reports O'Brien after a full day under the sun and moon in Palm Springs. "We rode three or four different styles of waves, but that's the thing, there's millions and millions of different ways they could actually make waves here. That was just kind of a taste. It's only going to get better from here on out."
The Palm Springs Surf Club has already started taking reservations starting on January 1. The days are filling up fast as the froth level is high for this latest surf park. A day of surf and golf in the California desert? Yes, please.
New Palm Springs Surf Club Brings Perfect Waves To California Desert
With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.