Nearly three years ago, Golfweek’s Forecaddie wondered aloud if Tony Romo’s new mega-deal with CBS Sports would put a crimp in his emerging golf lifestyle, one that included yearly appearances at numerous celebrity golf tournaments and even some appearances on the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour.
Romo has signed a record $17 million deal to stay put at CBS, leading The Forecaddie to wonder if we’ll see him tee it up again next fall on a sponsor invite at the Safeway Open.
At $850K per game, will the bosses at CBS take a chance their man won’t make a scheduled start?
Now here we are, with the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand reporting that CBS had grown so alarmed with Romo’s faltering performance that network execs urged him to take the job more seriously and add in some extra prep work. That meeting reportedly took place before last season, an intervention of sorts.
So what’s led to Romo’s regression? Radio host Colin Cowherd has a theory — golf.
On a recent podcast, Cowherd said Romo’s love for golf might be competing for his time when he could be breaking down more tape and maintaining better connections in the topsy-turvy NFL world. Cowherd insisted the migration to golf is natural for many, and he even said he has gauged potential employees’ love of golf before considering whether to hire them.
“I’ve used this for years when I would interview people and I was going to hire them,” Cowherd said. “If I had lunch or coffee with them, I always asked them if they loved golf. ‘Oh, I love golf. Do you love golf?’
“And if they said yes, I wouldn’t hire them. Because I always had this theory that as guys age, many of them get addicted to golf. They’re on PGATour.com, they’re putting in the backyard, they’re thinking about it at work, they’re scheduling a trip to Scotland and they lose sight of their other job.”
As for the former Cowboys quarterback, he’s maintained a high profile in the golf world, even winning his third American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in 2022 by edging Mark Mulder and Joe Pavelski in a playoff. His other wins came in 2018 and 2019.
He also teamed with University of Texas prodigy Tommy Morrison to qualify for the 2023 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship slated for May 20-24 at Kiawah Island Club. That event will coincide with the NFL Spring Meetings, which starts on May 22.
“Romo wants to be on the Tour. He literally wants to be on the Tour. And what’s the first thing Aaron Rodgers does in the off-season, he goes and golf, he loves it. Both, by the way, great golfers, especially Romo. But I’ve always felt like Tony Romo is one of those guys, and we all have somebody in our social circle like this, he got the golf bug, He’s had it for 15 years,” Cowherd said.
“Tony wants to be on the PGA Tour — but he likes the paycheck from CBS.”