Yes, Andy won the Billbong Pro, but y’see this wave of Kelly’s? The one he scored the event’s only 10 for? Looking straight into the tube from this angle it seems like a pretty straightforward late drop, but as Slater freefalls to the base the lip is already throwing two metres ahead of him. Setting a line from that far back in the tube has to be seen to be believed.

Watching Andy Irons win the Tahiti comp on Sunday morning reminded me of the last time I’d seen him surf, at Winki Pop against Taj Burrow back in April. As Taj ran down the stairs before that heat, a smart-arse surf journo mate sitting nearby yelled, with mock concern: “go easy on him, Taj!” TB looked back, grinned, kinda rolled his eyes, then went out and completely and utterly annihilated his Billabong team mate. It was merciless. Watching Irons surf that heat was almost uncomfortable. Here was a bloke who on his day still has a legitimate claim on being the best surfer in the world, looking completely out of his depth at three-foot Winki. Surfing against Taj five years ago, it was him who woulda done the annihilating. But in April 2010, Andy didn’t look like he deserved to be competing against him. Worse, he looked like he knew it.

But that was then.

There’s a lot of words been written about Andy’s multiple-world-champ-disappeared-into-the-wilderness act, and everyone had an opinion on whether he was ready to be back on tour at the start of the year. If you only know Andy Irons from Blue Horizon, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s kind of a dick. While that movie did him no favours, is it really the worst thing in the world for a professional athlete to turn into a slavering competitive mongrel when he puts on a contest shirt? Andy Irons rules. He wears his heart on his sleeve, gets publically emotional, and does ridiculous turns in parts of the wave most people can’t get to.

At Bells that day, Dane Reynolds was the only person I spoke to who didn’t seem weirded out by AI’s apparent flakiness against Taj. “Andy’s back, man!” Dane had enthused, before describing how Andy had completely blown him away the day before at 13th Beach. Clearly, Dane was seeing things the rest of us weren’t, but if Andy and Kelly use Tahiti to get all fired up for the rest of the year, it could be the best reason we’ve had so far to get back into the tour.

BILLABONG PRO TAHITI FINAL RESULTS:
1 – Andy Irons (HAW) 14.67
2 – C.J. Hobgood (USA) 8.33

BILLABONG PRO TAHITI SEMIFINAL RESULTS:
SF 1: C.J. Hobgood (USA) 15.00 def. Jeremy Flores (FRA) 12.93
SF 2: Andy Irons (HAW) 13.57 def. Kelly Slater (USA) 10.26

BILLABONG PRO TAHITI QUARTERFINAL RESULTS:
QF 1: C.J. Hobgood (USA) 14.53 def. Tiago Pires (PRT) 6.23
QF 2: Jeremy Flores (FRA) 11.80 def. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 11.33
QF 3: Kelly Slater (USA) 18.67 def. Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.77
QF 4: Andy Irons (HAW) 16.44 def. Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 11.00