Steve Sherman
Huntington Beach isn’t necessarily one of those places you think of when you hear Andy Irons’ name. Pipe, Backdoor, Teahupo’o, sure, but HB? Not so much. Andy’s reputed for his zero-fucks-given approach in waves of consequence, but he was also a hell of a showman. He both loved and lamented the spotlight. And in the late ‘90s, before he was a three-time world champ and just starting to make his way in the world, the U.S. Open of Surfing meant a hell of a lot to him. It’s worth noting, it was also a Championship Tour stop at this time.
“One of the first times I had documented Andy Irons was at the U.S. Open in August of 1998. Andy was on a competitive roll the whole week,” remembers photographer Steve Sherman, who would go on to document a myriad of moments throughout Andy’s life.
“He had blitzed through the trials, and was now in the final against tour warrior Mick Campbell,” continues Sherman. “The word on the street was that Mick and Andy didn’t get along at all. There was also rumors that they gotten in to a fist fight earlier in the event.”
They weren’t rumors. And it wasn’t much of a secret. Raw Irons and the Ginger Ninja didn’t dig on each other. The two got in several scuffles over the years. Neither one was ever going to about to back down.
“The backstage area before the final was quiet and edgy. You could defiantly feel the tension in the air between these two highly competitive surfers,” Sherman describes. “The thing I remember most was neither of them would not look at each other in the eyes at all. It was gamesmanship at it’s finest! Andy went on to win the final and establish himself a new force on the then ASP tour.”
“Are you joking? I’m up to 23? God, I’m stoked,” Andy marveled to the L.A. Times when he found out that he’d moved from 38 to 23 on the Championship Tour leaderboard.
In a bit of a foreshadowing of what was to come, about Andy’s performance, eventual rival Kelly Slater noted that “he proved that he’s a strong surfer and this will no doubt help him with his confidence.”
Only 20 years old at the time of his U.S. Open win, within four years, Andy would earn his first of three world titles and begin to assert himself as not only a red-hot competitor, but a true icon of the sport. He’d eventually capture three straight world titles in 2002, 2003 and 2004, as well as collect another U.S. Open trophy with a win in Huntington in 2005.
Related: Photographer Steve Sherman Looks Back On His Momentum Generation Masterpiece