Fans stoked on the Huntington Hop. Photo: Vans.
The US Open is really boring. The waves are often bad, the host city sucks, and the results aren’t even particularly important in the world of competitive surfing. It’s so boring, in fact, that the most exciting thing to ever happen there was a riot.
And Sterling Spencer shares that opinion, too.
In his latest podcast episode, surfing’s enfant terrible had a few choice things to say about Surf City, USA and its banner event. Of course, being Sterling Spencer, he also managed to rip on foiling in the process.
“I asked people what they think’s more boring, watching foil boarders or watching the US Open of surfing,” Spencer opened. “I did a poll. It’s neck and neck.”
Out of 14,000 people who voted in Spencer’s (extremely scientific) poll, 53 percent said foiling is harder to watch than the US Open of Surfing (I personally think that’s a little generous to the Open, but the fact that it’s so close certainly says something).
“Dude, the US Open is the worst,” summed up Spencer. “It’s at the worst wave.”
That aspect in particular is what ended up inspiring the poll in the first place – the uncanny resemblance between the iconic Huntington Hop and a foilboarder frantically pumping for speed.
“It’s just a big close out,” he continued. “It’s a big close out and then it gets mushy forever. What made me think of this is when they’re bouncing, I’m like, ‘This is watching foil boarding.’ You get one hit before it closes out and then you hop.
“It’s one of those things that no one knows why it’s still going on. There’s been a few legendary heats like Tom Curran and Occy, back in the ’80s. I think why it was so cool back then is people could get really close and watch because of the pier. So, it was more about like the amphitheater of it, not necessarily the waves.”
