AT&T Byron Nelson Recap: Kang Wins First Tournament

We're sure than Sung Kang winning the AT&T Byron Nelson on Sunday is a big deal in the Kung household. For the average golf fan, it isn't. And it even lost what little luster it had on Friday, when Kang got into next week's PGA Championship thanks to others withdrawing. So he no longer needed to win to get in. Good for Kang, bummer for CBS.

We'll pause on Kang for now. Instead, we want to talk about someone else.

We've come around on Tony Romo. We've seen the light. That wasn't easy for a lifelong New York Giants fan. The argument that Romo didn't belong in a PGA Tour event, that he was taking a spot in the Byron Nelson field away from a "real golfer" doesn't hold. Romo played on a sponsor exemption. (The fact that he didn't finish last, that he beat some professional golfers, doesn't even matter.) A "real golfer" wouldn't necessarily have gotten Romo's spot, anyway. It's just a fact of life: Sponsors pay millions of dollars to get their name and their brand and even their message attached to golf tournaments. They want something in return. Actually, they want a lot in return. For starters, they get their name in the title of the tournament – AT&T Byron Nelson. For another, they get sponsor exemptions to hand out as they please (within reason). 

Now, the Byron Nelson isn't exactly a big-time stop on the PGA Tour anymore. Why that has happened to one of the signature names in PGA Tour history is a debate for another day. But the field was one of the worst we've seen all season. AT&T wanted people to watch, they wanted people to pay attention (heck, Jim Nantz didn't even show up). We don't know whether they felt they got their money's worth, but we do know that Romo brought an incredible amount of attention to this tournament. Even Golf Twitter making fun of Romo is attention. And there was plenty of that, some of it from us.

It became harder to argue with the decision to give a spot to Romo after his chip-in eagle on Thursday totaled more than 1 million views on Twitter and Instagram just from the PGA Tour's accounts alone.
 

For goodness sakes, here's a tweet of Romo walking – walking! – that got more than 70,000 views. We don't even see his face.
 

Compare Romo walking to probably the most popular player on Tour (non-Tiger and non-Phil division) making a birdie. Yes, Jordan Spieth has fallen on hard times, but he still moves the social-media needle in a big way. Romo walking: 70k views. Spieth birdieing: 40k views.
 

Look, it's not as if Romo embarrasses himself out there. He may feel that way, but the guy didn't finish last at the Nelson. At the Dominican Republic opposite-field event in 2018, Romo's first PGA Tour event, he finished last in the field by six strokes. That's embarrassing. Back in the Dominican this year, he shot the same 15-over score for two rounds, but this time he finished second-to-last, ahead of another amateur who represented the Dominican.

Romo tried for Web.com Q school last fall. He made it out of prequalifying, barely, but not the first stage. And there are three stages. It doesn't matter. Nobody would've written two words about the Web.com Q school without Romo being there.

At the Nelson, four "real golfers" finished worse than Romo's 8-over total for the first two rounds. Maybe that happened because Romo is a member of Trinity Forest, maybe it's because he's getting better. Not only did he finish ahead of Whee Kim, Roberto Castro, Jonathan Byrd and Smylie Kaufman, he tied former PGA Tour winner J.J. Henry.

So who were the next alternates who didn't get into the field, not that that's how Romo's spot would've been filled? In order, Boo Weekley, Tim Herron and Brian Davis. Weekley is kind of a cartoon character out there these days and surely would've gotten some cheers on the course. But that's about it.

Romo is 39 and he will continue to play golf and, perhaps, strive to make a go of it on one of the Tours. The next time he tees it up, wherever that may be, most of you will be paying attention.

Just like we did here with one more highly viewed tweet:
 

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Sung Kang
Kang is the latest player to break through with his first Tour win. The South Korean is a little older than many of them at 31. He's been good enough to keep his card since 2015-16, and now he'll have it for a lot longer. Kang hadn't done much more than securing his card – a few high finishes every year. Now he heads to the PGA Championship, and he impressively has never missed a cut in five prior majors.

Matt Every
Every has been known for two things: whining in 2013 about the Masters letting in too many amateurs and somehow winning at Bay Hill not once but twice in a row, in 2014-15). Since that win, he had fallen off the golf map, earning less in the next three years combined than he did for one of those titles. But surprisingly, Every has been showing signs of life this season, with four top-20s back in the fall. Now he finished corunner-up at the Nelson. It won't get him into the Masters, but at least it has secured his card for next season.

Scott Piercy
Piercy played eight of the first 11 weeks of 2019, with one top-10 and two more top-20s. Not bad. Then he took five weeks off, came back and tied for third at Harbour Town, then took three more weeks off, came back and tied for second at Trinity Forest. He's now up to No. 64 in the world, his highest position in almost two years. The PGA is a huge jump up both in terms of the field and course toughness, so don't necessarily expect more of the same. Besides, Piercy is playing a second week in a row.

Brooks Koepka
Koepka didn't win the Nelson, but he came close, finishing solo fourth after a closing 65. The word on Koepka has always been that he tries in the majors but not in the regular events. He tried in this one. That should tell us where he stands heading into the PGA Championship.

Jordan Spieth
It was a weak field, and Spieth is a member of Trinity Forest -- and that meant some people thought that this would be the week. It wasn't. Spieth tied for 29th, falling down the leaderboard on Sunday after flirting with a top-10. He was a terrible 53rd in driving accuracy at a course with fairways as wide as the Grand Canyon. Now he heads to Bethpage Black, with fairways so thin they've been called "bacon-strip fairways." Yum. What do you think will happen to Spieth at the PGA?

Justin Harding
Harding is a South African who cracked the top-50 OWGR by winning a Euro Tour event in Qatar and then finishing runner-up the next week in Kenya. But we never know how these internationals will do when they move up in class to play on the PGA Tour. Harding tied for 10th at Trinity Forest and, while you may want to dismiss that because of the woeful field, remember that he also tied for 12th at the Masters. Harding is up to No. 42 in the world and he doesn't appear to be done moving up.

Pat Perez
Perez tied for 12th a week after tying for eighth at the Wells Fargo, and that followed two months off with an Achilles injury. He certainly seems to be better and surely more fresh at this time of year than he normally is.

Padraig Harrington
The 47-year-old Harrington tied for 12th and that was his best showing in a PGA Tour event in almost three and a half years, since he tied for sixth at the 2016-opening Tournament of Champions. The Irishman now heads to Bethpage Black, where he is probably overmatched, but you never know.

Aaron Wise
Wise had been coming on entering the defense of his first PGA Tour title. He was top-20 at both the Masters and Wells Fargo. He could muster only a tie for 43rd at the Nelson, but defending your first PGA Tour title is not easy. You arrive at the course with a new status, reporters want to talk with you, more people stare at you and whisper. A lot of guys in such a situation miss the cut. Wise didn't, and that was pretty good, giving him what we consider three successful tournaments in a row.