And it’s not Mick Fanning!
It’s been seven years since the homely yet attractive one-time world title contender Matt Wilkinson, barely thirty, shelved his spurs following the three most eventful years of his pro surfing life, a wild high followed by a failure that would’ve levelled a lesser man.
Let’s recap.
In 2017, Matt Wilkinson was coming off that wonderful breakout 2016 season where he won two CT events (Quiksilver Pro GC and Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach) and briefly held the world number one ranking. His surfing was tight and filled with filled with an about-to-explode energy, as exciting to examine as a woman in stockings and with a scrubbed morning face.
The standout moment of 2017 was his victory at the Outerknown Fiji Pro in June where he beat a stacked field, including eventual world champion John John Florence in the semifinals, for his third career CT win.
The Fiji win threw him back into first and proved his 2016 success wasn’t a fluke. He told Australian’s national broadcaster that the win gave him a “spring in his step” and a fresh perspective after a mid-2016 slump.
However, despite his electro-dynamism consistency would elude Mr Wilkinson.
After Fiji, he managed respectable but not spectacular results: fifth at J-Bay, ninth at Tahiti, and a mix of 13ths and 25ths elsewhere.
Matt finished the year rated fifth, matching his 2016 ranking. He said that 2016’s whirlwind success had left him “freaking out” and 2017 was about learning to handle the pressure of being a top contender.
The following year was a hell of a bitch fight, and his last full season on tour.
The year started poorly with a 25th on the GC.
Mid-season offered flickers of hope. A fifth at J-Bay and a ninth in France, surf fans warming themselves on his incandescence.
At the Pipe Masters in December — the season finale and his last shot to requalify — Matt hit another 25th and finished the year 4,100 points well off the twenty-two cutoff (held by Joan Duru).
But rather than exiting in a flood of tears, Matt and his then girlfriend now wife and baby mama, Anna Jordan, spent $3.2 million on the gorgeous Possum Creek school house, which had subsequently been rebuilt and turned into a $1500 a night guest house, out the back of Byron Bay there.
As far as post-tour life goes, Matt made several very good decisions.
Land, wife, ongoing income. A sunset golden.
All good things must terminate eventually and, five months ago, Matt and Anna listed the lavish resort with hopes of five-mill ish, with initial hopes of maybe five mill.
The realtor describes the property as “one of the most significant landholdings in the Byron Bay hinterland… an unmatched fusion of local history, premium commercial potential and luxurious rural living” and a “peerless blend of entrepreneurial appeal, accessibility and magnificent natural beauty.”
If you want to buy, maybe you have a mill-five deposit, the repayments will be roughly forty gees a month.
And do you remember Matt’s blood feud with Fred Pawle? Reminisce here.
