Forgotten Barnes storming at soggy Bethpage Black

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/06/2009 (6263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — If Mike Weir had been handed a contract promising him a 10-stroke lead over Tiger Woods on Saturday morning at a U.S. Open, he’d have signed it.

If Ricky Barnes had been promised nothing more than a berth in the field, he’d have taken that.

But playing conditions, the luck of the draw, and that fleeting prize known as confidence, can change expectations in a hurry.

Weir, who thought his game was coming around but didn’t know much more than that two days ago, shot a course-record 64 Friday and followed it up with a grinding 70 Saturday to reach the clubhouse in third place, two strokes behind the leader and (at that moment) 10 ahead of Tiger, who hadn’t yet started his second round in the 109th U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.

But it was the identity of that leader — Barnes, the 28-year-old, 2002 U.S. Amateur champion with the unconventional swing, long lost in golf’s minor leagues for most of the years since — that really opened some eyes Saturday when he plunked a smooth 65 on top of his first-round 67 to post the lowest two-round score in U.S. Open history, 132, and take a one-stroke lead over 2007 U.S. Presidents Cupper Lucas Glover with 36 holes to play.

The heavy rain and thunderstorms that had been in the forecast held off all day, allowing the second round to conclude and the third to begin, but none of the front- runners was able to get off the tee before rain returned in earnest.

Barnes, who hit 31 of 36 greens in near-perfect scoring conditions on a rain-softened Black Course, called his Open to date "pretty stress-free" — a phrase seldom heard in a USGA event — and wondered at the number of players taking liberties with a normally difficult layout.

"If you’d have told me I would be 8-under and only have a one-shot lead, I’d have said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ But I’ll take it," said Barnes, who defeated Hunter Mahan in the U.S. Amateur final at Oakland Hills seven years ago.

"Could I have predicted 132? No. Did I know I had it in me? Yeah. It’s tough to foresee something like this happening when you play two weeks and ride the bench two weeks because your (PGA Tour qualifying) number isn’t getting you many starts. Sad but true for guys in my category. It’s just tough to get in."

"So I’m just stoked to be able to get to play three tournaments in a row, and I came here wanting to prove myself."

Glover got to the house first after a 64 that tied the same course record Weir had equalled, but Barnes birdied the 17th to move ahead by a single stroke, a few hours before what could be a couple of days of heavy weather moved in.

Weir, meanwhile, left a 17-foot putt out on the 10th green when the horn went off Friday night, and holed it for birdie first thing Saturday.

"That’s the reason I didn’t putt (Friday) night — I knew we’d have daylight and be able to see the read a little better and we’d have perfect greens," said Weir, who birdied three of his first four holes in the morning, bogeyed the 16th and made a terrific 12-foot slider down the hill to save par at the 18th after going bunker to bunker with his approach.

"That whole nine holes, my putting saved me. All in all, to get it back to even for the day, I’m pleased," said the 2003 Masters champion, who is swinging beautifully despite being unable to get into any kind of rhythm with the stops and starts caused by weather.

"It’s difficult. You’d love to be in a normal day-after-day routine. This is odd now, I’ll go the range, work on a few things I need to practice, go back to the hotel four or five hours, see how the course is playing, watch them a little bit and try to guesstimate what my tee time is going to be, to come out and warm up again," he said.

"It’s just been a test of patience and trying to be in the right state of mind each time you come out, not to let things change too much. It’s difficult for everybody. But again, I go back to 2003, and it was like this at Augusta. Thursday was completely washed out, and I played, I think 29 holes Friday and, what does that leave, 26 on Saturday? Then Sunday was perfect."

Calgary’s Stephen Ames also put himself nominally back in the picture with a 66 to bring him up to level par. He had to give himself a talking-to after his opening 74.

— Canwest News Service