Just as Patrick Mahomes and Derek Carr came down to the wire in a Monday Night Football thriller, Tony Romo celebrated a different kind of victory.
On Monday afternoon, the former NFL quarterback and current CBS Sports analyst qualified for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball alongside his playing partner, 17-year-old Texas commit Tommy Morrison. The pair combined to shoot a best-ball nine-under 63 in the 18-hole qualifier at Winter Creek Golf Course in Blanchard, Okla., tying for the event’s low score as they notched 10 birdies versus only a single bogey.
Romo was in the tournament field alongside fellow former NFL QB Sam Bradford, who fell two strokes shy of his own qualifying bid. According to one reader who played at Winter Creek after the qualifier on Monday, Romo and Morrison’s score was doubly impressive given tough conditions and brutally slow pace of play. Rounds at the qualifier took somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hours, by one account.
Romo, a semi-professional golfer since retiring from the Dallas Cowboys in 2016, shot a 66 on his own ball with eight birdies. The Four-Ball marks Romo’s latest golf expedition in his post-playing career, an effort that has seen him compete in celebrity pro-ams, USGA qualifiers, even for a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Morrison, Romo’s partner, is already something of a cult figure in the junior golf world. At 6-foot-10 and only 17 years old, Morrison’s prolific size/skill combination makes him one of the country’s most heralded young players. Morrison, originally of Dallas, works with swing coach Jamie Mulligan, whose clients include Patrick Cantlay and Nelly Korda. He won’t begin at the University of Texas until next fall.
Romo and Morrison’s Monday performance granted them a spot in the Four-Ball, which will be contested at Kiawah Island from May 20-24. The duo will serve as one of 128 two-man teams at the Four-Ball, which features a 36-hole stroke play competition (in which teams take the lower of the two scores on each hole) followed by a 32-team match-play bracket to determine the winner.