Ralph Lauren Black Label trench, $1,995; Hugo Boss shirt, $155; Diesel jeans, $180.
How does the surf culture mix with golf?
When the water’s flat, we golf. We travel to all these tropical places, and there are usually golf courses around. For years we didn’t know anything about golf, but then we discovered something possibly as challenging as surfing—or at least as frustrating to learn as surfing is in the beginning.

You don’t do booze or drugs. Is that uncool to other surfers?
I don’t know that surfing really affects those choices so much; drugs and alcohol and that sort of stuff are all individual choices. But some of the places you find yourself in the surf world, well, there is quite a bit of partying. Most of it is no better or worse than you’d find at college or high school—just people having fun. But it’s a really free lifestyle, and anything’s available that you’d want to do.

What’s the biggest surfing scare you’ve ever experienced?
I was in the Java Sea in Indonesia. I ate it on a wave and hit my head on the water so hard it knocked me out. And I was underwater for that wave and the next one. I was unconscious and ended up getting whiplash. I had amnesia for a day. I was very calm when it happened, but later I realized how close to drowning I was.