CLOSE
Sign up to get news on contests, pro events, new products and special offers.
WATERSKI MagazineAll athletes have dreams of playing in a storied venue. Few actually get to do it. Heaven knows I never made that diving grab at Yankee Stadium. And you probably never snapped a helmet tight and rushed onto Lambeau Field. But any water skier with a trailer and a road map can slip into high-wraps and carve across water skiing's past, present and future in Winter Haven, Florida.
Water skiing wasn't invented in Winter Haven, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a place where it has evolved more over the past 50 years. In the 1950s and '60s, pioneers like Dick Pope, Willa Cook and Ricky McCormick blazed a double-handled, mahogany-planked path across the area's 8,000-plus acres of skiable lakes. Today, you can share those same waters with modern legends such as world champion barefooter Ron Scarpa, affable “Banana” George Blair and high-flying wakeboarder Thomas Horrell. If it's being done on the water, chances are somebody tried it in Winter Haven first.
The town's most notable resident isn't one of its skiers, though – that title is reserved for the famed Cypress Gardens. The Gardens sit on Winter Haven's largest body of water, Lake Eloise, and have been the site of virtually every celebrated ski event ever held. Although Lake Eloise doesn't have its own ramp, skiers can launch at nearby Lake Roy and follow the chain of lakes right through Cypress Gardens' back door, where the pros are at work daily.
Still not convinced this is water-ski's mecca? The Water Ski Hall of Fame is just down the road, and the town is home to over a half-dozen ski schools including Lane Bowers', Lucky Lowe's and the Bonifay Family Ski School.
Twenty-four of the 45 lakes in Winter Haven have public boat ramps, and all are within a short drive of Orlando and Walt Disney World. And, naturally, the Florida weather is skier-friendly almost year-round. – Tony Smith
