The 19-year-old Canadian, Erin Brooks, has gone from surfing prodigy to one of the most dangerous surfers on the Championship Tour.
If you didn’t already know the name Erin Brooks, there’s a pretty good chance you do now.
The 19-year-old Canadian just completed a ridiculous South Pacific run, winning the Tahiti Pro at Teahupo’o and the Fiji Pro at Cloudbreak in back-to-back events.
Her Fiji run included a perfect 10, a semifinal win over five-time World Champion Carissa Moore, and ultimately her third Championship Tour victory.
And the crazy part is, this isn’t exactly coming out of nowhere.
For surf fans who have been following the next generation, Brooks has been on the radar for years.
From Texas to Hawaii
Erin was born in Boerne, Texas, an unlikely starting point for an elite surfer.
She grew up doing gymnastics before her family moved to Maui when she was nine. A friend invited her surfing, and things escalated rather quickly from there.
The family later moved to Oahu’s North Shore, putting Brooks in one of the best surf-training environments on the planet.
And that gymnastics background matters.
Brooks became known early for doing things in the air that very few women were attempting. Wave pools, trampolines and skate ramps became part of her training, helping develop the aerial surfing that first made her a viral young prospect.
But labeling Brooks an “air surfer” misses what may now be the most dangerous part of her game.
She is an exceptional barrel rider.
And she happens to be goofy-footed.
That means waves like Teahupo’o and Cloudbreak put her on her forehand, which certainly doesn’t hurt when the Tour heads toward heavy left-hand barrels.
Speed. Progression. Aerials. Radical turns.
And maybe most importantly, Brooks looks increasingly comfortable when things get big.
The Resume Got Serious Early
Brooks won the U16 ISA World Junior Championship in 2022.
A year later, at just 15, she finished second to Tatiana Weston-Webb at the ISA World Surfing Games after battling through an absurd 11 repechage heats to reach the final.
Then came Fiji.
Brooks entered the 2024 Fiji Pro as a wildcard.
She was 17.
She had never competed in a Championship Tour event.
She won it.
Her path included wins over Caitlin Simmers, Molly Picklum and Tatiana Weston-Webb, making Brooks the first Canadian surfer to win a Championship Tour event.
Later that year, she finished fourth on the Challenger Series and officially qualified for the 2025 Championship Tour.
Not a bad rookie resume before actually becoming a rookie.
Welcome to the Tour
The transition wasn’t completely seamless.
Brooks had three semifinal appearances during her 2025 rookie season, in Portugal, the Gold Coast and Brazil, and finished the year ranked seventh.
That was enough to earn 2025 WSL Rookie of the Year, but her first full year on Tour also brought something she hadn’t experienced very often during her rapid rise:
Losing.
And maybe that matters.
Because what we’re seeing now looks less like a talented kid arriving early and more like a surfer beginning to understand how to win at this level.
Then Came Tahiti
Brooks’ 2026 season started slowly.
Through the first six events, she had yet to make it into the final rounds.
Then the Tour arrived at Teahupo’o.
Brooks started with a Round One win over fellow teenage phenom Tya Zebrowski before taking out five-time World Champion Carissa Moore.
Next came reigning World Champion and defending Tahiti winner Molly Picklum in the quarterfinals. Brooks won that heat 13.50 to 3.27.
In the semifinals she faced Isabella Nichols in a barrel-filled heat, dropping a 9.00 on her way to a 15.10 heat total and a spot in the final.
And that’s where things got really interesting.
Rookie Anat Lelior jumped all over the final, putting Brooks into a combination situation with a pair of eight-point rides.
Brooks needed two big scores.
She got both.
An 8.27.
Then an 8.93.
Six minutes changed the entire heat.
Brooks finished with a 17.20 total to Lelior’s 16.33 and claimed her first victory as a full-time CT surfer.
Tya Zebrowski. Carissa Moore. Molly Picklum. Isabella Nichols. Anat Lelior.
That is one way to get your first win of the season.
Then She Went Back to Cloudbreak
Less than two weeks later, Brooks arrived at a place where she already had some history.
Cloudbreak.
The wave where a 17-year-old Brooks had shocked the Tour as a wildcard in 2024.
She didn’t exactly ease back into it.
In her opening heat, Brooks started with an 8.00 before disappearing into one of the biggest barrels of the day.
She came out.
Perfect 10.
An 18.00 heat total and, in her words afterward, the best heat of her life.
From there, Brooks worked her way through a stacked field that included Caroline Marks and Vahine Fierro before meeting Carissa Moore in the semifinals.
Brooks beat Moore 11.84 to 9.97 to book her second consecutive CT final.
Isabella Nichols was scheduled to meet her there but was forced to withdraw after suffering an ankle injury in her semifinal, giving Brooks her second Fiji title and third CT victory.
At 19 years old.
Tahiti.
Fiji.
Back-to-back.
That’ll get your attention.
So What Does This Mean for Fantasy?
This is where Erin Brooks gets really interesting.
There’s an obvious temptation to label her a heavy-wave specialist.
Two Fiji titles and a Tahiti title will do that.
But the skill set is broader than that.
Brooks has elite barrel instincts, is comfortable in waves of consequence, surfs with speed, and has one of the most progressive aerial games on the women’s Tour.
She has also produced results in beachbreaks, high-performance waves and pointbreaks.
So for fantasy players, the bigger takeaway may not be that Erin Brooks is a great pick when things get heavy.
It’s the ceiling.
When conditions suit her, Brooks isn’t just capable of advancing a few rounds. She can win the event.
And right now, the kid who has been called the future of women’s surfing for the better part of a decade is beginning to make that description feel outdated.
The future may already be here.