Ricky Barnes' long journey leads him to top of U.S. Open

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — By now, he was going to be rich. By now, he was going to be famous.

Most of all, Ricky Barnes was going to be the next very big deal.

It was ordained, wasn't it? It was destined. Time was, Barnes would rip a drive from one time zone to another and everyone would slap his back and tell him how he was going to be the next Arnie or the next Phil. Time was, he tended to believe them.

Yeah, Barnes was going to own a piece of this thing they call the PGA Tour, wasn't he?

Why, he was going to play like, well, this.

Surprise, surprise. Rick Barnes, yesterday's phenom, the 519th-ranked player in the world, is leading the U.S. Open. Finally a 6-year-old promise has been made good.

When you think about it, who better to lead a delay-filled tournament than a golfer whose career has been in a delay? Through two rounds of the wash-and-rinse cycle that has become the Open, Barnes has finally been the golfer everyone thought he was going to be a half-dozen years ago, back when he was the young hotshot on his way to greatness.

So far, Barnes has been sensational. He has set a Bethpage Black course record with 8 under par 132 through 36 holes. He has hit 90 percent of his greens. He has 26 pars, nine birdies and only one bogey.

"Could I have predicted I would shoot 132?" said Barnes, 28. "No. Did I know I had it in me? Yes."

Back in the day, a lot of people saw low numbers when they looked at Barnes. In other words, this has been everything that anyone has ever expected, except that they expected it back in 2004.

And why not? This was the Wonder Kid. In 2002 he won the U.S. Amateur. In 2003 he was the low amateur at the Masters. He was the college player of the year. Tiger Woods called his game "beautiful." Phil Mickelson called it "incredible." It seemed there was no way around excellence for Barnes.

Ah, but in golf, there always is. Barnes didn't take advantage of the exemptions he earned with his Masters showing, and soon he was just another guy on the Nationwide Tour, reading about the successes of players he had beaten while in college at Arizona.

"I'd be lying if said I wasn't (ticked) the first two or three years," Barnes said.

"The college player of the year in basketball is going to get drafted in the top 10. 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. But he's going to get guided. Here, you get kind of thrown into the pack of wolves."

There for a while, the wolves had the advantage. Barnes lacked maturity. He lacked control.

In 2004 he was fined for beating his club repeatedly against a tree while playing in the Australian Masters. When his family sits around and tells stories, they talk about the time Ricky smashed his brother Andy's cell phone by throwing his golf bag to the ground.

"That happened twice," said Andy, 31, who is caddying for his brother. "Now I keep my cell phone in my pocket."

Some of this might be expected. After all, Ricky is the son of a football player, former Patriot punter Bruce Barnes.

"Ricky is always going to show some emotion," Bruce said.

"He's grown up," Andy said. "He's made some physical changes, but the most beneficial ones have been the changes he made mentally. Ricky always saw green lights. He was going to hit at everything. Now he understands that par is a pretty good score."

Sometimes, growing up takes a while. Sometimes, all the pats on the back can slow the process.

"I don't think Ricky thought it would be easy," Andy said. "I just thought he believed he was good enough to play out here. He thought he could play with anyone."

Call it a six-year golf lesson. There was the year he missed his tour card by a shot. There was the year he was 71st on the Nationwide money list. There was 2008, the year he sneaked in for the last available PGA Tour card. A lot of humility is to be gained out there.

Even life on the PGA Tour has been hard. Barnes is at the bottom level of pro golfers, which doesn't guarantee him a start every weekend.

Halfway through the Open, maybe halfway through his career, Barnes has at least earned that much.

From this point on, the important thing isn't Barnes' start. It's about his finish.