Miscast of Characters Atop Leaderboard

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- Try to guess where David Duval is in golf's world rankings.

"Eight-thousand and four?"

Good guess, but wrong. By a little. Try again. "I don't know what it is, 2009?"

Those were Duval's guesses. Even he doesn't know that's he's 882. But that number reflects the Duval of the past six years, since he fell from No. 1 and a British Open title all the way off a cliff, off the planet and out of the universe.

So it's shocking that he's here now, 2-under par and in third place, five strokes behind co-leaders Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover going into the final day at the U.S. Open. How will he do now?

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"I've been there before," Duval said. "It's not like a distant memory, but I think more than anything, the benefit I have possibly is that I also know the other side of it."

Something tells me we're in for a lot of choking Monday. If some of the bigger-name guys, such as Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods, have any chance, it's in that. Mickelson is five strokes back and Woods is seven. But the leaderboard is set up perfectly for choking now. Either that, or someone from some far-reaching corner of the golf world is going to win a big one, have the day of his life.

So this is about choking, and a failed phenom, a journeyman, an up-and-comer who has never been here, and a lost champion. That's the top of the leaderboard, in Barnes, Glover, Ross Fisher and Duval.

Usually by the final round of a major, the champions have made their way to, or at least near, the top. It's like the NCAA Tournament, where the Cinderellas wow everyone for a round, maybe two, but by the time you get to the Final Four, it's usually the big boys left. But at this Open, these other guys just keep hanging up there. I wait for the collapse, but instead, they stay there. Of course, the pressure goes up, maybe, a thousand fold in the final round of a major, and then escalates in multiples in each of the final few holes.

"I think today's atmosphere felt like [a final round]," said Barnes, the failed-phenom. "I'll just keep it going ...

"I got some nerves going and stuff like that. But that's golf. I think if you don't have a little bit of nerves when you're in the heat of competition, and especially in the last group, you're not human."

It's worse than that, harder than that. We've seen first-timers in the big-time just fold up, panic, lose control. "I don't think there are very many people that think I can or will do it, anyway," Glover said. "So that's fine."

Why doesn't anyone believe?

"First time I made the cut at an Open. Won one tournament," Glover said. "But Ricky and I are playing better than everybody right now."

Duval knows. He spent a few years with the dreaded label as the greatest golfer never to win a major. Then, he finally won the 2001 British Open. Now, he's competing with plenty of others who haven't won their first major. Barnes has never won a tournament at all, and rarely has even made a cut.

"You know, it happens," he said. "People win their first golf tournament as a major. It happens. It doesn't happen a lot, but it sure happens.

"Got to figure it out."

Yes, you have to learn how to win a major.

Barnes and Duval are the most compelling stories at the top. Fisher is a 28-year old player from England who plays mostly on the European tour. He's ranked No. 29. Glover is No. 71. But Barnes is 519. He has cult-figure potential today. Six years ago, he was slated as the next big thing in golf, the guy who would be Woods' rival for years. He was paid big sponsor dollars, put in a Woods video game. He was good-looking and quirky. And with all of that, he disappeared. He has been trying to work his way up through the minors. Finally reaching the tour this year, he has done nothing.

Now, he's winning the Open.

"I don't think you come in saying 'I'm going to win this week,' " he said, though Woods said almost exactly that. "I wanted to compete this week. I definitely thought I could compete."

Duval, meanwhile, dropped almost immediately after winning the British, thanks to a loss in interest, and then confidence, and then some injuries and his wife's difficult pregnancy. Why didn't he just give up?

"I believed I could get it back," he said. "I'm just not a quitter."

He remembered leaving Augusta after a particularly bad day at the Masters, thinking, "My older boys had come with me. So you have a rough day and quit and pack up and go home?

"I don't think that's an example to set."

So Monday comes down to a few stars who aren't in position to win and a handful of others who aren't ready.

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