Tony Romo fired off a 81 today at a North Texas local qualifier to end his hopes of playing in next month’s US Open. Last year Romo made it to the sectional qualifier but withdrew when a weather delay caused a conflict with a Cowboys practice event.
Tony Romo’s “obsession” with golf has become a perennial source of complaints among Cowboys fans who believe it distracts him from focusing on Football.
Jason Garrett, the Cowboy’s new head coach, takes the opposing view:
I know since I’ve been around the NFL, players love to play golf, and they love to play golf in the offseason. It’s really a way for them to kind of get away from what they’re doing at the facility, with the workouts or with the practice they’re involved in. So it’s always been a relief for a lot of guys at a lot of different positions.
Tony just so happens to be pretty good at it. He gets a lot of attention for it, but we probably have some guys on our team that play a lot more golf than Tony does.
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We’ve never viewed it as a distraction. He’s always the first guy in the building. He stays there late. He loves football and he loves his role as the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. He’s never shown us any reason to think that it’s a distraction in any way from what he’s doing for us with the Cowboys.
Romo’s 81 is unfortunate, especially considering the fact that there may not be a football season this year. If there’s no football being played, he can’t be accused of not focusing on the Cowboys.
I think that Romo has a shot at qualifying one of these days. He’s a solid golfer. I also suspect that we’ll see him tee it up at the Monday qualifier for the Byron Nelson in a couple of weeks.
And for all of the complaining from some golf fans about John Smoltz and Jerry Rice getting sponsors exemptions to shoot 85 and finish dead last in Nationwide Tour events, you have to at least give Romo credit for going out there and working hard to earn his way inside the ropes.
