Romo misses cut in Punta Cana

PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic – There was a measure of revenge Friday for Tony Romo at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship.

After making a triple-bogey 7 on the par-4 8th on Thursday, which derailed his otherwise solid round, he managed to make a birdie on Friday – which was the highlight of his 8-over-par 80. He finished at 15-over and missed the cut.

For the second day in a row, Romo was only 1-over for his last 10 holes of the day. He managed to settle in nicely at the Corales Golf Club after a tough opening stretch that saw him go 7-over through his first seven holes.

“Game came around on the back nine, started to feel comfortable really at the end of the front (nine) and then just kept it going,” he said. “Then one of those things where I putted terrible throughout the week, and you feel like you can hit the ball for really good stretches but you get nothing out of it, and it cost me over two days.”

On the final hole of the day, Kramer Hickok hit a flop shot from a tight and difficult lie to just a foot. It was the kind of shot Romo said he’s going to have to work on more at home.

Short game, he said, was going to be the key area he would practice moving forward.

“The biggest drastic difference was just the short game between (me and) these guys. When I miss a green, I'll get it to 12, 15 feet a lot of the times from the bunker or somewhere, and they're tapping in from four feet. So it was impressive to see,” he said. “That will be the next step.”

Romo said he was pleased with how much improvement he saw in himself from this time last year. The scores in 2019 were better, too.

“I had two or three bad swings that really cost me over two days, 7-over in three holes. You know, once again that's the consistency aspect,” he admitted.

He said this week taught him even more about what it is he needs to work on before he tees it up on TOUR again.

Romo said last year he needed to work on his ball striking, but now it’ll be the short game. He said if he had putted better this week, he could have shot mid-to-lower 70’s.

“It’ll be a lot of practice going forward I’m sure over the next couple months,” he said, as he looks ahead to his next TOUR start at the AT&T Byron Nelson at his home club, Trinity Forest.

“We’re going to shoot some low scores there,” he said with a smile.

Romo’s playing partners for the first two rounds – Hickok (71-68) and Denny McCarthy (69-69) – both made the cut.