'His Game Has No Quit': Why Tony Romo's Future May Soon Include Pro Golf
Although his football career with the Cowboys is finished and his basketball career with the Mavericks never got out of warm-ups, Tony Romo isn't through with professional sports: The 37-year-old former Dallas quarterback is attempting to qualify for the U.S. Open.
Romo has a long history on the links. He began as a boy, playing with his father, Ramiro (who eventually competed in the 2015 U.S. Senior Amateur). At Burlington (Wisconsin) High School, Tony Romo was a three-sport athlete, competing in football, basketball and golf. And although he didn't play much basketball beyond high school, he continued with a heavy golf course load even as he was looking for his break in the NFL.
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Before his rookie season in 2003, Romo made his first attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open, finishing seven strokes shy in Chicago. In May 2004, he fell short in another run at the Open. Later that summer, he won the Tri-Course Golf Tournament in Racine, Wisconsin, before competing in Cowboys training camp. In fact, during that camp—which he entered as the No. 4 quarterback behind Quincy Carter, Vinny Testaverde and Drew Henson—Romo considered a permanent change in profession.
"That's when I sat in bed and I just prayed to the Lord, and this was a very defining moment for me," Romo told The Village Church podcast in 2016. "I was like, 'If I'm not meant to be the quarterback here or play quarterback in the NFL, that's fine. Then I'm going to go back and be a really good assistant golf club professional back in Burlington, Wisconsin.'"
But even as his NFL prayer was answered to the tune of a two-year, $1.9 million contract, he wasn't quite ready to quit the course. Days after signing the deal in 2005, he made his third attempt to qualify, this time finishing one shot shy at three-under-par 69. "It's about competition," Romo said at the time. "This is my game in the offseason. And I want to play it well."
Golf continued to be Romo's offseason game long after he assumed the starting spot in Dallas. Although various news reports have stated that this current attempt at the U.S. Open is his fourth, he actually tried to qualify every year from 2007 to '11, to varying degrees of success. His best year came in 2010 when he advanced to the sectionals. At that stage, the competition drops from thousands of fellow golfers to just 36.
Just as a spot in the U.S. Open finally seemed within Romo's grasp, an untimely weather delay moved competition back a day. He would have to drop out of the event, which now conflicted with Cowboys OTAs.
Although he never did make the cut for the U.S. Open, he found success in several other tournaments during those years, most notably the American Century Championship, a competition that pits celebrities and athletes against each other for a week at Lake Tahoe each summer. Romo participated every year from 2007 to '12, coming in second place three times and never finishing worse than 11th.
In 2011, the actor Jack Wagner entered the final day of competition with a 10-stroke lead but watched as it slowly eroded thanks to Romo. It took Wagner a birdie on 17 and a saved bogie on 18 (both he and Romo hit into the pond) to pull out the win.
"Tony was like a lot of other athletes I competed against up there—he just never goes away," says Wagner, who is currently starring in Hallmark's hit series When Calls the Heart. "I wanted to pull him aside and just say, 'Would you collapse already?' But his golf game just has no quit in it."
Romo also finished as the runner-up behind former MLB All-Star pitcher Rick Rhoden. Rhoden, an eight-time winner of the event, is one of very few major professional athletes to have transitioned to pro golf in retirement. He believes that hockey players, pitchers and quarterbacks make the best crossover candidates—hockey players because the motion is similar and pitchers and quarterbacks because, he says, "in those positions, like in golf, you have to have a very short memory."
Rhoden says the key to a successful sport switch is playing against better competition. And if that's the case, Romo should be a shoo-in. At the 2012 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, he partnered with Tiger Woods and teed off with Jordan Spieth in 2013.
"He's one of those gifted athletes that whatever he picks up, he can do," Woods told the New York Daily News. "It's fortunate for him that he picked up golf at a very early age with his dad, and they've always played. He understands how to play. And on top of that, he can really move the ball with the training that they do and the explosiveness that they have and the strength that he has."
To Rhoden, it's no mystery why Romo is making such a quick move into golf. "It's of course about the competition," Rhoden says. "Anybody who gets to the majors or the top of their sport, it's just about talent—it's about the drive, the 'it' factor. And Tony has that. He has to find an outlet for that competitiveness."
Both Rhoden and Wagner recognize the odds are extremely long, but said they're rooting for Romo.
"It's going to be hard," Rhoden says. "These guys he's competing against have been doing it full time since they were seven or eight years old. Once he got into college, he was playing football. If he hit as many golf balls as he threw footballs, he'd probably be good enough. But he can rest assured he can throw a football better than 99 percent of the guys he's competing against in golf."
"Golf is like any other sport," Wagner says. "If you can get some confidence going, you can have a good chance. And Tony has a lot of confidence, so I'd give him a great chance."
Although he probably isn't in as good of shape as he was in the prime of his NFL career, Romo does have one major advantage now: He can golf without guilt. During his playing days, his frequent golf outings were fodder for sports talk radio hosts who questioned his commitment to the Cowboys. It seems unlikely that CBS, his new employer, will have a problem with him fitting in a few rounds during the offseason.
"I'd guess he has a lot more time to golf now, and that's the key," Rhoden says. "When I played baseball, I never was able to properly play golf. And I know Tony was criticized when he spent too much time at it. Now he can focus and improve. And it'll be a nice story if he qualifies."
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