Stars on the Water, Warriors in the Sun!
What a weekend! The 57th Nautique Masters Water Ski and Wakeboard Tournament was held at the prestigious Callaway Gardens on the legendary Robin Lake. This year was a special one for a few reasons, but…most notably, it was Lee Elliott’s 19th Masters and Eddie Beverly’s 31st! That’s a combined 50 years between the two of them! As a thank you, we whipped up this gem of a photo and presented it to them.
On Friday every year Nautique puts on the “Nautique Open” golf tournament that features a bunch of athletes and industry friends. The golf tournament is equally as important to some of the riders as the on-water events. Seriously, it’s always fun getting paired up with friends and leveling the playing field off the water. Look, I’m not throwing any backside 7s anytime soon, but I’ll put up a solid fight on the course and send a few over 300 yards down the pipe. This year Ambush Board Co./BuyWake.com Team Rider, Cole Vanthof, came with us and put together a fun little Instagram video.
Such a good time! Good ole JD Webb with the classic ender on that one! Before most of the action, Cole and I walked the historic grounds and filmed some of the best-looking boats we’ve ever seen. Nautique had their prized possession on site; a 1961 all original Ski Nautique, as well as every brand new 2016 model G Series. Hands down, having good partners like JL Audio, Seadek, PCM Marine, Roswell Marine, and a few others truly made the on-site experience of the Masters a joy to be apart of.
A video posted by BuyWake.com 🇺🇸 (@buywake) on
As for the on-water action, we missed having our team rider, Harley Clifford, on site, but due to a injury suffered from filming his X Games part, we knew our ace up the sleeve would be the one and only Mike Dowdy. Mike knew that, if he gave it a solid go with his usual bag of tricks, he could walk away a Masters champion. Watching Mike’s run I knew he had it, but seeing JD Webb ride as well as I’ve ever seen, I knew it would be close. Dowdy did indeed take the top honors this year, and we just know that it’s going to be the first of many Masters wins. Our homegirl, Nicola Butler, rounded out the women’s podium with a 3rd place finish, with Nautique athletes Megan Ethnell and Erika Lang taking 1st and 2nd, respectively. In the wakeskate battle it was Ambush/BuyWake rider Danny Hampson vs. arguably the two best in the world right now; Reed Hansen and Brian Grubb. When it is all on the line nobody has more competitive focus then Brian Grubb. The guy is just a machine. Grubb would go on to take the win, making him a back-to-back champion, and a holder of a total of three Masters victories in the wakeskate division.
Once again Cole killed it with his Dad Cam and captured a few video gems like this one!
There is no greater event then the Nautique Masters, and we look forward to carrying on the tradition and being a part of this event for years to come. We hope to see you all again next year for the 58th Masters!
