Can Tony Romo really make the cut at the Safeway Open?

Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback is surprisingly in the hunt to play the weekend in a PGA TOUR event for the first time. Can he keep it rolling and make his first career cut on Friday at the Safeway Open?

Don’t look now, but Tony Romo actually has a chance to make the cut at the 2019 Safeway Open. Yes, that Tony Romo – the former Dallas Cowboys QB who has missed the cut in all three of his previous excursions on the PGA TOUR.

We’ve heard all the jokes and jabs, the journeyman pros who have claimed that he’s “taking up a real pro’s place”, no matter how poorly formed that argument is. And while there’s something to be said about the fact that Romo has definitely struggled in live tournament action on the game’s highest level, we also have to give credit where it’s due: the guy is good. Maybe not full-time PGA TOUR player good, but better than 99% of us could ever hope to be.

After the first round of the Safeway Open in Napa on Thursday, Romo found himself in unexpected territory. He had a red number on the leaderboard, firing a solid two-under-par round of 70, including five birdies in an impressive putting performance.

How impressive was it? Romo was 90th in the field in driving accuracy and 65th in greens in regulation, hitting 12 of 18. He was 139th in strokes gained on approach. Then, he messed around and ranked fifth in the field in strokes gained putting. Drive for show, putt for dough indeed.

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At the time of this writing on Friday morning, in fact, Romo is just five shots off the lead held (at the moment, at least) by Andrew Landry and Adam Scott. If you could have found someone to give you any kind of odds on that coming into the week – and were insane enough to put money on it – you’re probably a very happy person today. Also, make sure to say hello to Tony at the next family reunion, because you must be related.

All kidding aside, Romo did beat some big names on day one. Guys like Hideki Matsuyama (even par), Justin Thomas (+1) and Phil Mickelson, who sits at +3 despite a quadruple-bogey 9 on the card. And he’s dedicated enough to have put in the work to fix some of the holes in his game that his previous outings have exposed under the spotlight.

"“Every time I play in one of these events, get lucky enough to get an exemption, I kind of get a chance to see what you’re not good at,” Romo said. “Very apparent it was putting over the last year so just a lot of work put into it. I’ve been putting well, so it was nice to come out here and keep that going.”"

So – can Romo actually throw that wrench into the Minnesota Vikings-Chicago Bears broadcast plan that CBS says they have a plan for? Possibly, but the line is razor thin. I’d expect the cut line to be at least the 2-under mark that he’s currently at, meaning he’d need to follow up his best-ever Tour score with his second best. Not impossible, but it would be an impressive feather in his cap considering the quality of competition at Silverado.

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But hey, this past year on the PGA TOUR gave us a bunch of surprising upstart stories from players we didn’t expect to see break through. What a way this would be for Tony Romo to make his own little mark on the new season, no matter where things go from here. I’ll be pulling for it to come together.

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