Bronte Macaulay

Australian professional surfer and second-generation Championship Tour competitor from Western Australia, the first surfer from the state to qualify for the tour since 2004.

Born in Gracetown, Western Australia, on 9 January 1994, Bronte Macaulay learned to surf at age nine under the guidance of her father Dave Macaulay, a professional surfer of the 1980s and 90s who twice finished third in the world. She began competing at 13 alongside her older twin sisters. Macaulay narrowly missed qualifying for the 2016 Championship Tour by a single spot, but earned replacement spots that year after Lakey Peterson broke her ankle, using the opportunity to beat Sally Fitzgibbons at Snapper and both Stephanie Gilmore and Johanne Defay at home in Margaret River. Those results secured her a place among the top 17 female surfers in the world, and she became the first surfer from Western Australia to qualify for the tour since 2004, officially joining as a full member in 2017 and winning WSL Rookie of the Year. Over her career on tour, Macaulay's best results included fifth-place finishes at the 2018 events in Bali and South Africa. She was coached throughout by her father, absorbing his inverted backhand attack and forehand snap, and became known for her performances in the powerful waves of her home region. Macaulay retired from competitive surfing in 2024 after more than a decade on tour, citing the increasing financial difficulty of a career in professional surfing without major sponsorship, and has since pursued a degree in primary school teaching in Western Australia.

Powerful backhand attack and forehand snap inherited from her father's coaching

A respected second-generation Western Australian professional surfer