Winter Haven's Cole McCormick set to compete in MasterCraft Pro Tour in Lake Grew
Riding on a slalom waterski and holding on for dear life to a 75-foot rope attached to a pylon boat is Cole McCormick. He is evading buoys as he gauges the conditions of the glistening waters of Lake Grew riding 36 mph.
His goal is to go through the entrance gate, clear six alternating buoys and ride out the exit gate. Every time he makes it through a pass, the ropes become shorter, making it that much more difficult to clear the buoy. Water ski competitors earn points based on how many buoys one goes around and how short the rope is.
This is the standard for McCormick’s next competition.
The Winter Haven native and Florida Southern College graduate turned pro water skier has been diligently gearing up for the third annual MasterCraft Pro Tour, which is slated for the weekend at Lake Grew in Polk City. One of several events through the year, dozens of men’s, and women’s competitors from around the world, including Great Britain, Switzerland and France, divided into different divisions will receive a purse prize of $5,000 for first place, $3,500 for second and $2,500 for third. There will be cash prizes for those who place in the top eight as well.
The qualification score to advance to Polk County’s event was clearing six buoys with a 39-foot rope. McCormick, 26, was able to advance to the event thanks to hitting the qualification several times this year. His goal is to now survive the first two rounds in the open men's division, and McCormick said he couldn’t be anymore gleeful about the opportunity.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s definitely awesome to have an event this close to home,” McCormick said. “I grew up skiing record events at this very site whenever I was here as a kid. And it’s been here ever since I was a kid. So it’s cool to come back to the same place and ski a pro tournament. It’s always exciting. The first year we’ve had some pretty incredible scorers.”
In the first year (2020) the MasterCraft Pro Tour was held at Lake Grew, McCormick advanced all the way to the finals and placed seventh.
But before McCormick had big goals of placing high in a pro waterskiing tournament in his very own hometown, he was indoctrinated into the sport of waterskiing at a very young age.
McCormick starts waterskiing early, rises through the ranks
At the young age of 3, McCormick hearkens back to the memories of his two pro waterskiing parents, Rick McCormick and Susi Graham, who both are in the waterskiing Hall of Fame as well as the international waterskiing Hall of Fame, holding several world records.
Rick McCormick invented several tricks for the trick event, while Graham has broken Canadian women slalom world records.
When his parents weren’t busy setting records, they introduced McCormick to waterskiing when he was 3 years old . McCormick was brought up at Lake Roy in Winter Haven, where he learned the fundamentals of waterskiing. He attended Grace Lutheran School and North Ridge Christian Academy in Haines City. By the time his brother was born, the family had moved, which allowed McCormick to waterski on Crystal Lake.
While McCormick’s parents were continually shadowing, training and allowing their son to waterski on different lakes, his skills were blossoming. He even trained at McCormick Ski School — a school his waterskiing uncle, Jim McCormick, opened. Jim McCormick was instrumental in introducing video to the sport, a way for competitors to dissect their technique.
Bummed he wouldn’t be able to waterski in college, he found out from longtime waterski mentor and friend, Roger Skalko, he could waterski in college, specifically at Florida Southern, where for the longest time water skiing was the only Division I sport at the school — albeit a National Collegiate Water Ski Association sport. Now beach volleyball is a Division I sport at the school. So McCormick attended Florida Southern with a partial scholarship, studying computer science.
While McCormick knew the basics, it was the direction of France native Thibault Dailand and Winter Springs native K.C. Wilson — McCormick’s college teammates — who really helped him to make the realization that he could compete professionally.
“They really helped me push my skiing in the direction in needed to go. I learned a lot my first two years,” McCormick said. “I learned a lot three years in school, just starting to get coached by different people, putting different eyes on me. They introduced me to a different way of thinking. I changed a lot of my equipment. Everything just kind of fell in place. It was kind of crazy.”
To this day, McCormick still has the team record in slalom skiing thanks to clearing three buoys with a rope of 41 feet. And the Moccasins were in the top three in nationals every year McCormick was at the school.
By the time McCormick graduated from Florida Southern in 2018, he was a six-time national champion, including a national slalom champion twice. And, he had already competed in a pro event, the U.S. Open as a senior.
Fast-forward three years into his pro waterskiing career, McCormick qualified for his first professional world championships thanks to third place at the World Games.
Right now, striving to be a better water skier and working as a full-time remote software engineer are on his agenda for the rest of the year.
He is in the thick of things at the MasterCraft Pro Tour at the moment.
“I’ve been very close to winning my first pro event, but not quite yet. I would love to break the Canadian national records,” McCormick said. I’d love to be a world champion. But one step at a time.”
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Winter Haven's Cole McCormick set to compete in MasterCraft Pro Tour in Lake Grew
