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Tony Romo gets playing partners for Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship
By Drew Davison
Published on
The PGA Tour didn't go all-in with a must-see pairing of Tony Romo and John Daly for the opening two rounds of this week's Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in the Dominican Republic.
Instead, Romo is paired with Dru Love, the son of golfing great Davis Love III, and a two-time All-American player at Virginia, Denny McCarthy. The trio will tee off No. 1 at 8:10 a.m. EDT Thursday and from No. 10 at 1 p.m. on Friday.
Fans interested in watching can tune into Golf Channel, which will air the event from 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. Coverage of Saturday's play will air from 2-5 p.m. and Sunday's final round from 3:30-6 p.m. on Golf Channel.
Dru Love will be making his ninth career PGA Tour start and has made just two cuts in his career. His highlight to date has been qualifying for last year's U.S. Open.
Romo's other playing partner, McCarthy, is in his first full season on the PGA Tour. McCarthy has made two of nine cuts so far this season with a best finish of T66 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last month.
McCarthy has made one appearance in a major, finishing tied for 42nd at the 2015 U.S. Open.
Romo is making his PGA Tour debut on a sponsor's exemption. He is listed as a +0.3 handicap and has tried multiple times to qualify for the U.S. Open. He reached the U.S. Open qualifying sectionals in 2010.
Romo, 37, didn't have the most inspiring outing in his last known golf event. He withdrew from an event on the Northern Texas Players Tour last month after shooting an 81, a round that included carding a 10 on a par-5.
Oddsmaker BetDSI Sportsbook has Romo at 15-to-1 odds of making the cut this week. The over/under of how many players Romo finishes better than in the 132-man field is 2.5 (excluding ties).
According to Bovada, Romo has the worst odds to win. He's listed as a +150,000 shot to win the tournament.
By comparison, NBA star Stephen Curry had 9-to-1 odds to make the cut at last year's Ellie Mae Classic, a Web.com Tour event. Curry finished that event 11 strokes off the cut line, but ahead of three fellow players.
Romo would like to finish better than that, although history suggests it won't happen. Former Washington Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien got an exemption into the 1992 Kemper Open and had an embarrassing tournament, posting a 29-over par and missing the cut by 28 shots.
Romo does not want to follow in those footsteps. A solid showing could lead to more opportunities.
If Romo holds his own, it could lead to other tournaments such as the AT&T Byron Nelson at least discussing him as a sponsor's exemption candidate.
The field includes some well-known golfers such as multiple major winners in John Daly, Angel Cabrera and Retief Goosen. U.S. Ryder Cup captain and 2003 U.S. Open champ Jim Furyk is also in the field, as is former two-time Ryder Cup captain and 1997 PGA Championship winner Davis Love III.
The highest-ranked player competing in the Dominican Republic is Argentina's Emiliano Grillo, ranked 76th in the world. As expected, Grillo has the best odds to win at +800, per Bovada.
This article is written by By Drew Davison from Fort Worth Star-Telegram and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
