Next Generation Of California Women Have Arrived On Championship Tour
Three heats, three young women from California moving on at the Pipe Pro. On the first day of the 2024 Championship Tour season for the women, Caity Simmers, Alyssa Spencer and Sawyer Lindblad all found ways to advance out of their opening round heats. Growing up within an hour of one another in Southern California, surfing and competing together since they were young girls, collectively they represent the new generation of American surfers on tour today.
The established star of the trio, Simmers was named Rookie of the Year and finished in the Top 5 last year. Spencer and Lindblad are both starting off their rookie campaigns. Meanwhile, at 20 years old, Spencer is the oldest of the three. Simmers and Lindblad are both 18. And after what we say at Pipeline today, they’re all ready for prime time.
Lindblad picked up right where she left off last year, winning her opening heat against Hawaii’s Gabriela Bryan and Aussie Isabella Nichols.
“After that comp, the Final 5, I was so mentally dead. I kinda just had to sit in my room for a couple weeks and just do nothing,” Simmers explained after her heat. “I didn’t I would be ready again is the best way to put it, I guess, then a couple weeks before I left for Hawaii, I was like, okay, I wanna go somewhere, and move and do things, so I ended up doing a couple surf trips that were really fun.”
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Up next was Spencer, who found herself in a stacked heat against world title contenders Molly Picklum and Tatiana Weston-Webb. Picklum stole the show, which may have been expected, but Spencer hung tough and put in a performance she could be proud of. Finishing second in the heat, she’ll skip the elimination round, which is a big step towards a solid result in her first outing.
Finishing the day was Lindblad, who surprised everyone but herself, showing maturity beyond her years to win her heat outright. The highlight came in the form of a 7-point barrel at Backdoor that she handled masterfully on her backhand.
“That was actually the first backside barrel I’ve made out there,” Lindblad said. “I’ve gotten the lip in the head so many times practicing for this event. Before the heat I was talking to my coach Shane and he told me to just keep going, cause I tend to hop off when I think I’m too deep and on that one I saw I could just keep going and somehow I made it through.”
For a variety of reasons, the start of the Pipe Pro was always going to present challenges to all three women. For Simmers, it mean a return to the spotlight that she, by and large, prefers to avoid. And for Spencer and Lindblad, the first day on tour is much like the first day of high school—you don’t know what exactly you’re doing, but you made it. With the first hurdle cleared, it’s onward and upward for the California girls.
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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.