For 15 years, Sergio Romo said no to golf. Now he can’t say yes fast enough.
The three-time World Series champion and longtime San Francisco Giants closer has joined TRUE linkswear’s United by Golf initiative, lending his name — and his newfound obsession — to a collective of athletes building community around the game. For Romo, it’s less an endorsement and more a confession: golf has become the thing he didn’t know he needed until the day his playing career ended.
If you watched professional baseball at all between 2008 and 2023, you know the slider. You know the beard. You know the stare-down after a big strikeout. Born March 4, 1983, in Brawley, California, Romo grew up in a household of die-hard Los Angeles Dodgers fans — which makes it all the more ironic that he’d go on to become a cult hero for their archrival up north.
Romo’s path to the majors wasn’t a straight line. Lightly recruited out of high school, he bounced through four different colleges — Orange Coast College, Arizona Western, North Alabama, and finally Colorado Mesa University, where he went a ridiculous 24-4 and forced scouts to take notice. The Giants took a flier on him in the 28th round of the 2005 draft, and what followed was one of the more improbable success stories of his generation.
Romo debuted with San Francisco in 2008 and quickly became a bullpen fixture, setting up for the 2010 World Series title before taking over as closer for the 2012 championship run — capping it off by freezing Miguel Cabrera with a backdoor slider to complete the sweep of the Detroit Tigers, a moment etched into Giants lore. A third ring followed in 2014, and along the way Romo earned an All-Star nod, a spot on the Giants’ Wall of Fame, and status as one of the most beloved characters the game has seen.
After his decade in San Francisco, Romo became something of a baseball nomad, bringing his signature funky delivery to the Dodgers, Rays, Marlins, Twins, Athletics, Mariners, and Blue Jays. Fittingly, he closed the book on his career in the spring of 2023 the same way he opened it — in a Giants uniform, signing a minor-league deal just to take the mound one last time and retire where it all began. He walks away with a 3.21 ERA, 137 saves, and 789 strikeouts across 722.2 career innings.
The Sanctuary He Didn’t Know He’d Need
Ask any retired athlete what’s hardest about hanging it up, and most won’t say the competition — they’ll say the routine. For two decades, Romo’s life revolved around the clubhouse: 9 to 12 hours a day, every day, dating back to college.
“I love golf. My relationship with the game started roughly a month after I retired from baseball,” Romo says. “I spent 15 years declining invitations to go golfing. Now, I find myself searching for the next opportunity to play golf.”
That’s not a small swing. Romo went from golf-avoider to golf-chaser almost overnight, and the reason has less to do with birdies than with what the game replaced.
“Going from spending 9 to 12 hours a day at the baseball stadium for the last 20-ish years of my life — counting college — I need something to help buffer that transition from baseball, to give me something similar to what baseball was for me,” Romo explains. “For the last 20 years, entering a baseball clubhouse was a sanctuary for me. Now, the reason I don’t miss baseball is because I have golf. Being at the golf course for four or five hours and being able to step away has been like a sanctuary and a big part of the reason why I love golf.”
