The Fruitful Joys Of Youth

Remember the halcyon days of gromhood? Blind to life’s absurdities. A one track mind focused on the here and the now and the next session at hand. 

Such is the life of Caloundra’s Reef Heazlewood. Only 17 years old, but with first place finishes at the Occy Grom Competition, Pa & Ma Bendall Memorial Surfing Contest, 2012 Under-16 Australia School Boys Title and, most recently, the Sunny Coast Subway Series, you can’t knock Reef’s hustle. And when photographer Andrew Shield hit us with an email with the subject line, Reef pics, we were intrigued, and certainly not disappointed. Just look at that trajectory! Visual evidence Reef can huck more arc than the covenant. Let’s have him take from here.

“It was a fun couple of days with Shieldsy, he got some cool shots so I was pretty frothed! The barrel shot was from Iluka, then the next sequence of four shots was from Currumbin. The rest were Iluka too. Iluka, can you even say that?”

So, what’s the life of a traveling grom like? “It’s pretty busy this first part of the year, I’ve done the Aussie leg of QS’ aiming to build a seeding, combined with aiming to win the juniors. My goal for the rest of the year is to try and get into a couple of the higher ranked events and get into a decent seeding position then concentrate on the QS’ next year.

“I’m off to Japan tomorrow. I’m a couple off getting into the six-star over there, so I’m hoping to get a start via waiting as an alternate, or even before that with any withdrawals. I’m just super keen to improve my ranking this year… and it’s been going pretty good.”

His ultimate goal? “My dream for next year would be to take out a win at Kiama in the World Juniors after the fifth place this year. Then, aiming to be able to enter the high ranked events, with a good run in those, leading onto the CT for 2019. I would like to be on the tour, achieving the ultimate dream of a CT world title five years from now.”