The US Open suffered another delay today because of overnight rain. The tournament organisers revealed the third round could not be restarted because of more rain overnight at the Bethpage Black course at Farmingdale, New York. The third round will not be resumed until 12noon local time (5pm Irish time).

With the third round of the year's second major still far from being completed, that will mean a Monday finish at the earliest.

"We are going to resume at noon," Mike Davis, US Golf Association director of rules and competitions, told reporters.

"From 8.30 am and roughly 9.30 am this morning we are expected to get another tenth of an inch of rain so we figured it didn't make sense to get the players off any earlier than that. At that juncture, we knew we were going into Monday."

With light scattered showers forecast for Sunday afternoon, Davis expected the delayed third round to finish at around 9.30pm Irish time with the final round scheduled to start from about 10.30pm.

"We should then finish up some time around noon tomorrow, assuming we don't get thrown something from Mother Nature which we are not expecting," Davis added. "If we have a playoff it would go tomorrow afternoon."

The last time a US Open spilled over into a fifth day before the 72 holes were completed was at Oakmont in 1983 when American Larry Nelson triumphed.

More than six inches of rain has been dumped on Bethpage Black since the start of this month with three-quarters of an inch saturating the hilly par-70 layout overnight.

PGA Tour rookie Ricky Barnes held a one-shot lead heading into Sunday after firing a five-under-par 65 on Saturday for a record 36-hole total of 132 at the rain-delayed tournament.

Barnes led fellow American Lucas Glover by one stroke and was among 16 golfers yet to tee off for the third round when action was suspended the previous evening due to flooded greens.

Holder Tiger Woods, who won the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage, was a distant 11 shots off the pace after carding a second-round 69 and making a par to launch his third round.

Sixty players made the cut at four over par after the 156-man field finally completed the second round on Saturday afternoon due to a backlog caused by storms that washed out Thursday's opening round after just over three hours.