Good Marketing Aside, She’d Prefer Clean Break

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Three-time world champion Lisa Andersen watches a set roll in and likes what she sees, even hopes to eat her words. But what are the chances this clean three-to-four-foot southwest swell can last two weeks?

Andersen understands why the U.S. Open, scheduled Aug. 4-10 at Huntington Beach, is contested in the often slow, blown-out conditions south of the pier. But that doesn’t mean she’s particularly happy about it. She was very supportive of a proposed move to Trestles--a point break on the southernmost tip of Orange County offering what many say is the best wave in California--but when plans fell through, she resigned herself to the realities of her sport.

The U.S. Open is more about surfgear and surfwear than it is about surfing. For a tour that holds many of its events on remote beaches all over the globe because they offer the best waves, the six-figure crowds at the Huntington Beach event give the surfwear industry an opportunity to erect a mile of booths in search of new customers.

“OK, so this is an event for the sponsors to make their money,” Andersen said, “and it’s the only event in our country to promote pro surfing, and the crowd doesn’t care about the quality of the surfing, they just want to see Kelly Slater. So we’re the performers who come out of our cages and do the show.

“I know I have to do Huntington, that it’s a serious matter, and that the result could be the difference in whether I win another world title. But I think this is the kind of contest that hurts our sport. From a competition standpoint, the only good thing about Huntington is that you’re all in the same mush together.”