Is Romo keeping his eye on the wrong ball?

This was the question posed by Tim McMahon of the Dallas Morning News regarding the amount of golf Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo has been playing.

Romo recently played in a U.S. Open local qualifier and also in a qualifier for the HP Byron Nelson Championship. He missed on both counts, each time the result of late round collapses.

"You can't mention Tony Romo playing golf around these parts without folks worrying about whether he's focusing enough on football," McMahon wrote on the Morning News' Cowboys Blog.

Former Cowboys star Emmitt Smith, an avid golfer, came to his defense. "Man, this is the off-season," Emmitt told McMahon. "Whatcha think a guy is gonna do? Sit around? I mean, as long as he's training and taking care of his body, which I think he is. Maybe golf is a way to relax. There's a lot of metaphors between golf and football."

McMahon was not particularly sympathetic. "Unfortunately for Romo," he wrote, "the metaphor that immediately springs to mind when reading about his late-round fades this week isn't a pleasant one."

Ouch.

-- John Strege