The Switchfoot Bro-Am
3 comments| by Mike Govea
The 11th Annual Switchfoot Bro-Am
The 2015 Switchfoot Bro-Am took place last weekend in Enicitas, California. This year's event, the 11th annual, was the biggest yet with over 14000 people decending on Moonlight Beach. The Bro-Am is a way that Switchfoot have come up with to give back to the San Diego community, and consists of the Bro-Am and Rob Machado Bro Junior, and a free concert.
The Rob Machado Bro Junior
The contest started early at 7am with the Rob Machado amateur grom contest, where many locals and traveling future surfers took to the waves. Rob, or Mr. San Diego as he is called around here, said hi to anyone that spoke to him and signed autographs all day, a real classy dude.
Mike Govea with Rob Machado
On a day with a good pulsing south swell that made for walled but fun conditions it was great to see the groms in action. Mostly close outs so all had to prove themselves in 3 seconds spurts of actions, from floaters and airs into shallow closeouts. The competition was fierce, there is a lot of future talent out there.
A Team Rusty Grom
The "Bro Competitions"
The the team “Bro competitions" followed on from the Juniors. Bro Competition in quotes because it was more of a family affair than an actual competition since they all cheered each other on and gave each other high-5’s regardless of who pulled off the best wave.
Bro's and Family
Surfers from Team Hurley, Rusty, Fish 101 and other team riders too part in the Switchfoot competitions.. All riders where required to ride a "normal" using their normal stance and then required to ride a wave switchfoot, which made for many comical rides for those that are not used to it. Amateurs and Pros alike, surfers including Damien Hobgood, Evan Slater, Sean Marciel and Rob Machado, took part in the competition and were just out there having fun.
Crowd and Competitors including Damian Hobgood and Rob Machado
The event organisers were expecting around 7000 people at the event this year, which actually turned out to be 14,000 — an incredible turnout.
The Surfing
We all enjoyed some great surfing throughout the competitions, included the Surf Jousting that took place. Picture four surfers riding a longboard trying to knock each other off the board using jousting sticks — great fun!
The Surf on the day
And of course, there were bands playing from 12:00 throughout the event. This year there were performances from Switchfoot, Drew Holcomb, Colony House and Brynn Elliott. All in all a great day for surfing, for San Diego, and for Surfing Waves. This is IB_Surfing signing out, 'will see you at the next contest…
For more information about the Bro-Am:
https://www.facebook.com/SwitchfootBroAm
https://broam.org/
About the Reviewer
Mike (aka IB_Surfer) is a San Diego local and regular over on the Surfing Waves forum. He's a keen surfer, and likes to try out as many boards as he can get his hands on!
Sounds like a great event
Yea!!!
Had a blast covering it, fun times