Romero is No Rookie

Year-end awards are rarely something that I give much thought to, but this season's race for Rookie of the Year has me puzzled.

There are five candidates up for the honor, but only two have won regular-season PGA Tour events—Chez Reavie (Canadian Open) and Andres Romero (Zurich Classic). In my book, that elevates them above Dustin Johnson, Marc Turnesa and Kevin Streelman.

But to call Andres Romero (right) a "rookie" isn't quite accurate. True, this was his first season as a member of the PGA Tour, but unlike others up for the award, he was exempt into all four of 2008's major championships because of his outstanding play in 2007.

He won the European Tour's 2007 Deutsche Bank Players Championship and finished third at the British Open at Carnoustie (which lifted his world ranking to 29 from 109). A sixth-place showing at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, a no-cut event that he qualified for based on that world ranking, moved him up to No. 25 and earned the Argentine $202,000.

All of that ensured that the officials who wrote the 2008 PGA Tour Media Guide saved a page for him in the players' section right next to Justin Rose.

To find Chez Reavie in the media guide, you'll need to search in "Other Prominent PGA Tour Members." A three-time All-American at Arizona State and winner of the 2001 U.S. Public Links Championship, Reavie earned his exempt status on the PGA Tour by finishing 18th on the Nationwide Tour in 2007. His previous career winnings on the PGA Tour were $7,840, and his highest world ranking was 211.

My gripe is not with Romero, who is talented, fearless and is going to win again. It's with the committee that would put a player with his credentials into consideration for ROTY in the first place.

(Photo by Fred Vuich/SI)

Romero ties Oakland Hills record with 65

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Play was suspended at 2:16 p.m. as a massive front doused the course with rain on Saturday.

By that time Argentina's Andres Romero had already tied the competitive course record at Oakland Hills, making seven birdies while shooting a five-under-par 65. With the best round of the week by two strokes, he moved from a tie for 48th place to a tie for eighth as players waited for the storm to dissipate.

"I played an excellent round, almost perfect," Romero said through an interpreter.

Several pin placements were more accessible than they had been all week, which explains the rash of red numbers Saturday. Camilo Villegas was four under for his first 14 holes, two over total. Fredrik Jacobson, Graeme McDowell and Prayad Marksaeng were three under for the day when play was suspended.

Steve Flesch, who started the day three over par and went off with fellow lefty Phil Mickelson at 1:10 p.m., made two birdies in his first five holes and got to one over. Mickelson was even for the day, three over total, while South Africans Ernie Els and Retief Goosen were in lockstep. Playing in the same group, they were both one under through 13 holes and five over for the tournament.

Romero's 65 was a 13-shot improvement over his 78 on Friday, when much of the damage came on the par-4 16th hole, where the green is guarded by a lake. Romero kept spinning his approach shots back into the water and made a quadruple-bogey 8.

"I played a great first shot, then a perfect 9-iron from 140 yards," he said of his disaster. "It bounced in the front of the green, but like the wind blows just in the moment, and it went down to the water. Then again I had tried to make a good shot, but again a lot of backspin, again into the water. After that I got mad and I played very disconcentrated, not very concentrated the whole rest of the round."

Romero got his revenge on the hole Saturday. He made a birdie 3.

Hanging out with the cool kids

Since I’m too old for the circus, I skipped the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson-Adam Scott grouping and decided to follow Andres Romero, left, Anthony Kim and Ryuji Imada around the front nine of Torrey Pines on Thursday.

If Tiger-Phil-Adam were like a U2 concert in an arena, then Andres-Anthony-Ryuji were like Vampire Weekend in a theater. The secret is definitely out, but you still feel like you’re seeing the next big thing instead of the big big thing.

I wasn’t the only one either. While Bono and the Edge, I mean Tiger and Phil, were followed by swarms of fans, the Romero-Kim-Imada Show attracted a smaller but respectable audience. Not a surprise considering they’ve all posted wins on Tour this year. This looked like one of the morning groups that could produce an Open champion. (The other promising grouping of Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and K.J. Choi was more like John Cougar Mellencamp -- good music but the hipsters stayed away).

Kim, 22, played with his brash power; Imada, the old man of the group at 32, with his easy cool; Romero, 27, with his magnetic personality, which causes his fans to shout exclamations in Spanish to the Argentine. What makes Romero so much fun to watch is that he actually looks like he’s enjoying himself out there. The guy even smiles on the course, which you see so infrequently you might wonder if it was against the rules. (I’m such a Romero fan now that I’m now concerned I might be developing a man-crush.)

In the end, they all posted respectable scores. Romero looks like a contender at even par, and Kim and Imada are both +3. But more important, they showed that the game does have appealing young stars behind Tiger. In Kim’s case, we may be seeing the first post-Tiger superstar, in that he grew up idolizing Tiger, not Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus like so many of his fellow competitors. So enjoy watching Tiger and Phil, but don’t forget about the other guys too. Much of this game is about tradition and the past, which is great, but the game has a future, too.

(Photo: Al Tielemans/SI)