A BARNES STORMER; THE 109TH US OPEN...109TH US OPEN... THEUS OPEN... THE 109TH US OPEN... THE 109TH: High-flying Ricky's the man to beat.

Byline: KEN LAWRENCE

RICKY BARNES described the Bethpage Black experience as like being stuck in an airport and they won't refund your ticket.

Yet he was still flying high at the top of the US Open leaderboard three rounds into the muddy marathon that saw so many others slip out of contention.

Mike Weir, who began the day in third place, started falling from the sky, David Duval and Phil Mickelson never really got off the ground and the rest were left staring helplessly upwards.

The only men to make a move towards him were Ross Fisher and Hunter Mahan.

The Englishman started out at two under and made the close-range birdie at the last that saw him finish with a 69.

Mahan went from level to two under but the closest rival to him remained Lucas Glover, one shot off after two rounds, and still one behind as the final leg began last night.

At one stage in the day Barnes was an astonishing six shots clear of the field. The Californian, bidding to become the first player to win the event without even one USPGA win since Jerry Pate in 1976,was at 10 under by the ninth.

Five holes before, after a sensational putt had brought him an eagle three, he became onlythe fourth player in US Open history to be under par in double digits when he got to minus 11.

Hunt During that extraordinary first nine, Glover dropped from a starting point of seven under to four under but rallied superbly. He headed off the first again, once more alongside Barnes, lying at seven under after recording a 70.

Barnes, meanwhile, looked like he was enjoying the flight even if he dropped two shots on the back nine to also shoot 70. He said : "Did I expect to be where I am after three rounds? No. Did I think I had it in me?Yeah."

The rest of the field effectively left it to Barnes and Glover and the most frustrated of the lot was Phil Mickelson.

Of all those outwith the top three who could still actually see pacemaker Barnes, he possessed everything it should have taken to hunt him down. Indeed, he made no less than seven birdies. The problem was, he kept giving them back.

He bogeyed five times and his score of 69 kept him him fighting for the trophy he would love to take back to wife Amy as she prepares for treatment for breast cancer.

All the way through Mickelson had shown an almost superhuman grip on his emotions as the New York fans, at every opportunity, showed their support for him.

Yet it seemed unimaginable that the load he carried in his heart did not diminish at least some of the inspiration required to take a grip on the tournament, especially considering the delays and weather difficulties.

Even so it was very clear that if he was going to go down, it would only be with a mighty struggle. He finished with three successive threes - birdie, par, birdie - and as he stared down a 38-foot putt that finished in the hole then punched his fist in delight, his body language was not that of someone out there just to make up the numbers.

He said: "I felt that if I could get under par then I would give myself a chance.

"I'd like to have been more under par at this point but I made a couple of dumb mistakes out there. Even so, I still feel that if I can get hot out there I still have an opportunity to win."

Duval also found it difficult to find the spark to put any pressure on Barnes, which was understandable given that he had been forced to hang around for 30 hours to get back on the course.

The waiting caused by all that rain - the start was delayed yesterday morning by more than four hours after an overnight deluge - will surely have played with his head. Having become the dead man walking of golf, the former world No.1 had turned back the clock with opening rounds of 67 and 70.

Then came that wait.When he would have been simply bursting to follow up on such an impressive return to the high end of the game, he found himself subjected to a cruel form of water torture.

He arrived now rated as 882nd in the world with no one, apart from himself, expecting anything. After all, the fall of the 2001 Open champion has been so long and deep that he even had to qualify to make it here.

But his coach, Bob Rotella, had been privately predicting that Duval could even win this thing, saying:"If I were a betting man, my money would be on David.

"He thinks he is back. And so do I." Duval, however, didn't do anything much to seriously worry second-placed Glover, far less Barnes, although he finished three, three, three, putting together a late two-birdie burst that gave him a second successive 70.

He said : "I'd like to have holed putts but I'm going into the last round knowing I have a chance - those two birdies in the last three showed me that more than anything."

Lee Westwood, on the back of a Saturday 66, went out again full of hope and two birdies in the first four of his penultimate round had him buzzing but then it all went flat, his driving and especially putting collapsing like his score for a finish of 74.

THIRD ROUND SCOREBOARD (USA unless stated) 202 Ricky Barnes 67 65 70 203 Lucas Glover 69 64 70 207 Ross Fisher (Eng) 70 68 69, David Duval 67 70 70 208 Hunter Mahan 72 68 68, Mike Weir (Can) 64 70 74, Phil Mickelson 69 70 69 209 Retief Goosen (Rsa) 73 68 68, Bubba Watson 72 70 67, Todd Hamilton 67 71 71, Sean O'Hair 69 69 71 210 Graeme McDowell (NIrl) 69 72 69, Stephen Ames (Can) 74 66 70, Peter Hanson (Swe) 66 71 73 211 Oliver Wilson (Eng) 70 70 71, Soren Hansen (Den) 70 71 70, Ryan Moore 70 69 72, Steve Stricker 73 66 70, Tiger Woods 74 69 68 212 Michael Sim (Aus) 71 70 71, Stewart Cink 73 69 70, Sergio Garcia (Spa) 70 70 72, Lee Westwood (Eng) 72 66 74, Johan Edfors (Swe) 70 74 68 213 Anthony Kim 71 71 71, Matt Bettencourt 75 67 71, John Mallinger 71 70 72, Adam Scott (Aus) 69 71 73, JB Holmes 73 67 73, Henrik Stenson (Swe) 73 70 70, Nathan Taylor (Can) 73 65 75 214 Rory McIlroy (NIrl) 72 70 72, Camilo Villegas (Col) 71 71 72, Azuma Yano (Jpn) 72 65 77 215 Francesco Molinari (Ita) 71 70 74, Jim Furyk 72 69 74, Drew Weaver 69 72 74, Billy Mayfair 73 70 72, Gary Woodland 73 66 76, Thomas Levet (Fra) 72 72 71 216 Carl Pettersson (Swe) 75 68 73 217 Dustin Johnson 72 69 76, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus) 73 67 77, Trevor Murphy 71 69 77, Ben Curtis 72 71 74, Kevin Sutherland 71 73 73, Vijay Singh (Fji) 72 72 73, Ian Poulter (Eng) 70 74 73 218 Kenny Perry 71 72 75, Andrew McLardy (Rsa) 71 72 75, Angel Cabrera (Arg) 74 69 75, Kyle Stanley 70 74 74, Tom Lehman 71 73 74, Tim Clark (Rsa) 73 71 74 219 KJ Choi (Kor) 72 71 76, Fred Funk 70 74 75, Jean-Francois Lucquin 73 71 75 220 Rocco Mediate 68 73 79, Andres Romero (Arg) 73 70 77 223 Jeff Brehaut 70 72 81

CAPTION(S):

LAUGHING MATTER: Harrington and Angel Cabrera share a joke FOCUSED: US Open leader Ricky Barnes is setting a hot pace