Romo out, Wheatcroft second at PGA event
Tony Romo figured his weaknesses would be exposed in his PGA Tour debut. They were – and then some.
The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback finished last Friday in the 132-man field in the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship, bogeying the first six holes in a 10-under 82.
“I kind of have an idea of where I really need to put my time in as far as to get better and scoring,” Romo said. “I’m hitting the ball fine, you just have to score.”
Now an NFL analyst for CBS Sports, Romo opened with a 77 hursday. At 15 over, he was six shots worse than the next player on the leaderboard and 28 strokes behind leader Brice Garnett.
On Friday, Romo followed the opening bogey run with a double bogey on the par-4 18th. He birdied the par-5 fourth and par-4 sixth on the second nine, but had double bogeys on the par-3 second and par-4 fifth.
“I lipped out three or four putts early, some short putts that kind of got me almost a little bit pressing,” Romo said. “I just didn’t hit the irons very good today. The back nine’s 4,000-some yards, so when you’re not hitting those, well you’re going to have tough shots.”
Garnett followed his opening 63 with a 68 to get to 13-under 131.
Trinity graduate Steve Wheatcroft and Keith Mitchell were a shot back, each after their second 66. Wheatcroft had a bogey-free round with four birdies on the front nine and two on the back.
Speith no match for Reed: In a showdown that turned sloppy, Patrick Reed nearly holed a wedge to seize control and finished off Jordan Spieth with a 40-foot birdie putt from behind the 17th green to advance to the weekend of the Dell Technologies Match Play.
The 2-and-1 victory sent Spieth home in search of his game with the Masters just two weeks away.
Spieth hit his opening tee shot onto the range and out-of-bounds. He hit into a hazard on each of the next two holes. And when he finally caught Reed with consecutive shots to tap-in range, he missed two key putts inside 6 feet.
“I don’t think it would have been that tough to beat me today,” Spieth said.
Spieth, the No. 4 seed, wasn’t the only player leaving early.
Justin Thomas (No. 2) and Sergio Garcia (No. 7) were the only top-10 seeds to advance to the fourth round. Thomas had the easiest time, a 7-and-5 victory over Francesco Molinari. And with defending champion Dustin Johnson already eliminated, Thomas can go to No. 1 in the world if he wins this week.
But there’s a long way to go.