Pro Surfers Vie in San Clemente for Glory and $250,000 This Week

San Clemente Patch will be out covering the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro surf competition every day of the event this week. Look for updates every day, as well as live Tweets and photos from our beach and surf reporter .

Contenders include San Clemente's own Patrick Gudauskas, ranked as the 25th best surfer in the world.

We certainly won't have the monopoly on coverage. If you have some great photos or updates from the event, upload them to San Clemente Patch on our daily articles.

The following is the text of a press release from the Association of Surfing Professionals about the the competition:

The Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) PRIME Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro is set to host an impressive list of the world’s best surfers including 26 of the elite ASP Top 34 at California’s famed cobblestone pointbreak of Lower Trestles from May 3 – 7, 2011. Surfers will be battling for the crucial points on offer toward their ASP World Ranking against the globe’s finest up-and-comers.

Running in conjunction with the men’s ASP PRIME event will be the ASP 5-Star Oakley Pro Junior, which will see the nation’s finest under-21 talent tee off at the highest ranked event on the 2011 ASP North America Pro Junior Series.

Kelly Slater (Cocoa Beach, FL), 39, who has claimed four elite event wins at Trestles, is looking forward to being a part of the buzz created by the diverse group of talent in this year’s Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro draw as they showcase surfing’s future at one of the world’s most high-performance waves.

“Trestles is one of the most high performance waves in the world and in my eyes that event is really telling of the future,” Slater said. “You see all the young guys, you see all the best guys being able to do their thing. You also see guys that will never be world champions, but they’re the best guys at what they do maneuver wise. It’s one of those contests you want to be in the mix and feel that energy.”

Patrick Gudauskas (San Clemente, CA), 25, current No. 25 on the ASP World Rankings, is looking forward to the benefits of competing in a prestigious event at his home break. The progressive young Californian is out to use his local advantage as inspiration to garner a top result at the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro while competing in front of his friends and family.

“I don’t really feel any extra pressure entering into the event in my backyard,” Gudauskas said. “I just love sleeping in my own bed and surfing a wave as good as Trestles down the street. I always have high expectations for myself at Trestles because it is home, but I always use that as inspiration not pressure.”

Gudauskas is also fired up to compete in the ASP PRIME’s unique format, which will see his fellow ASP Top 34 members up against the sport’s most promising up-and-coming athletes.

“When you look at the seed lists of the PRIME events now, it’s pretty much looking like a WT event, but maybe even more exciting with all the up and coming local guys, and insane surfing PRIME surfers,” Gudauskas said. “The level of surfing is always super high at Lowers and it’s a great place to shine.”

Conner Coffin (Santa Barbara, CA), 17, has been allotted a wildcard into the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro and the Santa Barbara standout is thrilled to capitalize on the crucial points on offer to build his ASP World Ranking while surfing against some of the world’s best.

“It’s pretty crazy for me to have the opportunity of surfing in the PRIME event down at Lowers,” Coffin said. “This year the PRIME events have such a small field and the points are so big, that it has made it impossible for me, someone with very few world ranking points, to get into them. With me getting the wild card into this event it will really help my points on the World Ranking. Plus I get to surf Lowers with some of the best surfers in the world, which gets me super excited!”

Coffin, current No. 3 on the ASP North America Pro Junior Series, will also be a top seed in the ASP 5-Star Oakley Pro Junior and knows that a standout performance at Lower Trestles will be important in securing his position for the 2011 ASP World Junior Tour.

“It’s awesome that the Junior at lowers has been upgraded to a 5-Star,” Coffin said. “Without a doubt, Lowers is the best venue on our regional junior tour and in the years past it has only been a 2-Star. It makes sense that since Lowers is such a skate park and the event is coupled with a huge PRIME, that it would be our highest rated event of the year. It would definitely be awesome to get a good result at this event because it is one of the last high rated junior events to count towards qualification for worlds (the ASP World Junior Tour).”

Both the Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro and Oakley Pro Junior will feature an HD webcast with live video coverage and scoring for all five days of competition with announcers Sal Masekela, Mark Fewell, Dino Andino, Saxon Boucher, Chris Mauro, Brad Gerlach and Jodie Nelson.

The Nike 6.0 Lowers Pro will be televised live and in its entirety in Hawaii on Oceanic Time Warner Cable’s Oceanic SURF Channel 250 and 1250HD.

For more about the Oakley Pro Junior, visit oakleyprojunior.com.

The 6.0 Lowers Pro and Oakley Pro Junior wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of sponsors. A special thank you goes out to presenting sponsors Nike 6.0 and Oakley, co-sponsors Red Bull and Sierra Nevada, media sponsor SURFER Magazine and official forecaster Surfline.com