Grown-up Barnes flexes muscles with record-setting U.S. Open show

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- Whenever Andy Barnes would leave the house, heading off for a summer day full of sports and assorted misadventure, the hue and cry as he headed out the door was predictable.

Delivered by mom or dad, the message rarely varied.

"Take Ricky with you."

Older brother/caddie Andy Barnes says U.S. Open leader Ricky is learning the value of hard work. (Getty Images)

Ricky Barnes, built like a stumpy fire hydrant at the time, was the ultimate tag-along little brother, forever tugging at the shirttails of his elder sibling, three years his senior. Like most kids, they played football, basketball, anything with a ball. Ricky took the predictable butt-whipping, too.

"He didn't care," Andy said. "He'd get right back up and come back for more."

As it turned out, it established a nice foundation for Barnes' golf career, because until this week at the 109th U.S. Open, keeping up with the big boys has always been a difficult prospect, full of disappointment, figurative bloody noses and scabby knees.

"I know he hates losing," Andy said. "Maybe because he did a lot of it when he was younger."

•  Day 3 recap | Leaderboard | Barnes' scorecard

And more than a bit as a young adult, too, which is what made his record-setting start at Bethpage Black all the more surprising. In a field full of the household names with whom Barnes has been so desperately trying to compete, he's finally atop the leaderboard.

The strapping 28-year-old shot 65 on Saturday and stands at 8 under par, establishing a new 36-hole scoring record at the Open. He has made one bogey, hit 31 of 36 greens and is playing like he should have been out here all along.

Backing up seven years, most folks figured he would be.

It has been an unsettling, uneven career arc for Barnes, the winner of the 2002 U.S. Amateur and a player many had marked for stardom. Toiling ever since on the mini-tours and developmental circuits, it took him until this season to earn a spot on the PGA Tour, and he made it by the slimmest of margins, claiming the final spot among the 25 players promoted last year from the Nationwide Tour.

In almost any other arena, the top player out of college is getting a guaranteed contract, a big-league salary, maybe even a seven-figure bonus. Barnes, who went through sectional qualifying to earn his Open berth this week, got a big league beat down and has been scraping his way to the top ever since.

"The guy in basketball is going to get drafted in the top 10," Ricky said. "He's going to get a three-year stint and settle down in the NBA, probably come off the bench and he's going to earn his stripes that way.

"Here you get kind of thrown into the pack of wolves, go to Q-school and you have to earn it. But I like it. The only guy I can blame is the guy in the mirror and that's why I love this sport."

Imagine what it must be like to destroy everybody in your proximal peer group, in both college and top amateur competition, then watch as they race past you on the professional level. Barnes went from being the guy driving the 18-wheeler to steaming road kill. It's a big talent pool out there these days and getting larger every year.

"He thought he could compete with everybody," his older brother said, "but he didn't know everybody."

When he won the U.S. Amateur, he beat Hunter Mahan, now a tour regular who already has a tour victory and a berth on the Presidents Cup team on his résumé. Though Barnes always had a swing that was built more for explosive power than accuracy or finesse, he seemed to be an anointed one, especially after the spring of 2003.

As a perk of winning the Amateur, he earned a berth in the Masters field the following year, where he played alongside defending champion Tiger Woods. Over two rounds that got everybody's attention, the athletic Barnes steadily blew the ball past Woods off the tee and beat him by six strokes over their 36 holes together.

"Two rounds of golf don't make a tournament," said Andy, 31, who is serving as Ricky's caddie this week. "Or a career."

Yet everybody was suitably impressed. Said Phil Mickelson after seeing Barnes play that week: "Ricky Barnes is an incredible player, he's a very talented player. As a matter of fact, he has been somewhat of an inspiration for me to get in the gym, because I look at young guys coming through college, and the physical strength that they have now and the ability to swing the club so much faster than many of us out on tour today, I used that as a motivation for me to get in the gym, get stronger, and be able to take advantage of some of the technology nowadays."

Barnes has always been a physical specimen -- at least, after he began hitting the weight room. As a freshman at Lincoln High in Stockton, Calif., he was a pudgy 5-feet-5 and 220 pounds, but soon sprouted like a San Joaquin Valley cornstalk. He had the genes for it -- his father played football in the Tommy Prothro era at UCLA and was one of two punters drafted in 1973. The other was Ray Guy, the greatest punter in NFL history.

Bruce Barnes, who roomed with future NFL star Dave Dalby in college, played for the Patriots and Packers for parts of three seasons. So it must have been tough for the family to watch Ricky get booted around for the past seven years.

"He was one of those highly touted guys," said Andy, who as an assistant men's golf coach at Arizona, Ricky's alma mater, ought to know. "But it's not that easy."

Every year, 25 players are promoted from the Nationwide. Two years ago, despite a rally at the end of the season, Barnes missed getting his card by $6,137. Last year, camped in the clubhouse at the Nationwide season finale, he sweated out the final pairings and claimed the 25th spot by $3,583. With only minimal exempt status as a result, for most of this year he has been trying to get into PGA Tour events. He has made six of 12 cuts and is No. 197 on the money list. He is ranked a humbling 519th in the world.

Over the years, Barnes said he has tweaked his swing slightly, put in the extra time required to hone his game and learned some tough lessons.

"I keep telling him, hard work beats out talent every day," Andy said.

Now that Ricky is finally a big boy, maybe it's time to be the one delivering the whippings to his elders.

"I've grown up," Ricky said. "I obviously thought after my college career I'd be out here right away. I was able to get a lot of exemptions earlier with my play at the Masters and U.S. Open and Amateur, and not getting really success. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really pissed off the first two or three years, seeing other guys that you played with getting out there and playing well, the guys you know you competed against in every tournament and every step of the way, and they're out there and you're struggling just to get conditional status on the Nationwide Tour.

"Nothing that a few extra hours on the range and putting green [can't fix]. And just aging, I guess."