The world’s top professional surfers got a glimpse of their competitive future on Tuesday: an assembly line of perfect waves, each one identical to the one before it, and all breaking at perfectly timed intervals.

The strange part? The surf was created by a manufactured wave system, and the whole thing took place on a man-made lake in the middle of central California.

The long-rumored test event was hosted by the World Surf League behind closed doors at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, Calif., and unofficially called both the Future Classic and the Test. Each wave is manufactured for the perfect ride by a 70-ton hydrofoil, with each one breaking in a scheduled succession across 700 yards of a lake originally constructed for water-skiing. Slater, a former world champion, has spent nearly a decade pioneering the technology.

“It’s kind of like a brand new toy that you’ve been wanting for a long time,” Jessi Miley-Dyer, a commissioner at the surf league, said ahead of the event, which was closed to the public. “In a sport that’s been contingent on waiting for the ocean and waiting for something to show up, it’s a whole different ballgame in terms of being able to plan out the day.”