LIFE is looking pretty peachy for Gracetown surfer Jacob Willcox.
The 18-year-old just celebrated the end of his high school years, as well as his success in being named this year's hottest surfing talent by Surfing Life magazine.
After topping the 2014 Hot 100 list for under 18s, Willcox was contacted for an interview with the magazine.
He joked about the surprise of winning.
"Really?? What! Is it not alphabetical order for once?"
The young talent has clearly turned heads and many are wondering whether he feels ready to step into the World Championship Tour anytime soon.
“It’d be pretty hard to turn that down because it’s so hard to make it there, but I mean, Taj turned it down,” Willcox told Surfing Life.
“It’s just that the standard of surfing now has increased so much – not that it wasn’t high when he tried to qualify – but when he tried to qualify he knew that he could easily do it the year after because he was so much better than everyone else. It was like a new era of surfing. There are THAT many good guys now, whereas back then there were only a handful.”
He admitted there were still areas he wanted to improve in, including his physique.
"I’m tiny," he said.
"I weight 65 kilos, and I guess Filipe’s that weight, but he does really good airs. I don’t feel like I’m fully-grown at all yet – I’m 5’11’’ but I don’t know – I think I’ve grown up this year but not quite out. And if you look at my dad, he’s pretty solid."
Read the full interview with Jacob Willcox here.
