IF YOU BUILD IT, They Will Surf
It was before 8 a.m. at NLand Surf Park just outside of Austin, Texas, and wispy clouds of steam rose from the warm surface of the water, condensing in the still-cool spring air. Without a breath of wind, the water mirrored the slate-gray sky and the chain-link-wrapped pier pilings that cut through the center of the pool.
Suddenly, loudspeakers surrounding the pool crackled to life with the rhythmic drum-and-clap intro to Johnny Cash’s moody classic “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” Just as Cash’s deep, haunting drawl came through the sound system, another noise rose above it — a high-pitched whir like the sound of a spacecraft from a sci-fi movie getting ready to push its engines past light speed. Under the pier, steel cables and wheels began to move at a blurring pace.
Out of flat water, a solitary lump of liquid about the size of a basketball began to take shape on the surface near the end of the pool. Over the course of 20 or so yards, it grew taller and spread wider, only beginning to take the familiar shape of an ocean wave in the last few feet as it reached a takeoff zone marked by banners on the pier.
In most wave pools, the first wave of the day is always the best because of the absence of turbulence from prior waves, and by the time this first pulse of the morning reached visiting Hawaiian pro surfer Torrey Meister, it had become an absolutely flawless shoulder-high left-hander. It looked more like a computer-generated image of a wave than the real thing, which, I guess, isn’t too far from the truth. Meister hopped to his feet, bottom turned and threw a tight, arcing turn at the lip. With wide eyes, he stared down the line at the surreal wall of pristine glass that kept peeling ahead, completely section-less. The wave continued breaking in uniformity down the length of the 1,000-foot-long pool, never changing size, shape or
