Romero beats Monster, rain once he stops sweating the wet stuff
"Yesterday, I don't want to practice," he said. "I went home and went to sleep not even thinking about golf. But today when I woke up, I wanted to play golf again."
He did it at historic levels. His sensational third round matched the lowest ever posted on the Monster. In various events staged at Oakland Hills over the years, eight previous players had shot 65, a list that includes Jack Nicklaus, Andy North, T.C. Chen, David Graham, Tom Lehman, Denis Watson and the late George Archer.
Better yet, he birdied the 16th and parred the 18th, resulting in a seven-stroke reduction on those two holes alone.
Now that's a bounceback to remember.
"I played an excellent round, almost perfect," Romero said. "Yesterday, I finished very nice with my round and now, after this 18 holes, I can't believe it, I have a chance for tomorrow and, well, I have to wait, but it's great to be here."
He's been here before, sort of.
Romero nearly won the British Open at Carnoustie last year with a similar stretch of brilliant play in the final round, before making a couple of questionable or over-aggressive decisions down the stretch that ultimately cost him the tournament.
"I learned a lot that week," he said of Carnoustie. "I was much more strong after that."
He won enough money at Carnoustie to earn his PGA Tour card, however, and won earlier this season in New Orleans, but that victory required something of an asterisk. Because of weather issues, the final-round leaders were not paired together and Romero posted his score nearly three hours before the other contenders finished. He won in backdoor fashion while seated in the clubhouse, fiddling away on his laptop computer.
That's surely won't be the case this time, when he'll be boiling in the same cauldron with the rest of the would-be winners.
Even though he was still bristling over two seemingly good shots that resulted in his quadruple-bogey Friday -- if his "snowman" was excised from his card, he would have been leading -- Romero was one of the few who took the high ground regarding the punitive course conditions.
"I think that the setup is perfect, I like it very much," Romero said. "Fairways are perfect, the greens are hard, but they are good and good speed and the rough, it's a good rough, you can hit some shots from there. But I like the course and today I could make a very good round even with those conditions." Romero, speaking through an interpreter, could barely be heard at times above the roaring thunderstorm overhead, but one word was audible and used several times in describing his round, which was two shots better than anybody else to date this week.
"Perfecto," he said.
That translates in any language.
