BRISBANE, Australia — The rewards come quickly when you take the golf world by storm, as Marco Penge is discovering. A PGA Tour card, debuts in the Players Championship and majors, won nearly $4 million this year in prize money. But the hugely successful Englishman, who has won three DP World Tour titles this year, has marked a special milestone on his 2026 calendar for Wednesday April 8.
“As a father, I’m really looking forward to playing the Par 3 (Masters tournament); seeing my little boy have success in the white suit at Augusta; how good is that?” the Englishman said this week at the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland, a DP World Tour event that kicks off the 2025-26 season. Penge leads a field that also includes Adam Scott, Cameron Smith, Min Woo Lee and others.
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Penge, 27, made his Masters debut with his victory at the Spanish Open, which Augusta National chose as one of six national openers to award the champion a start at Augusta National. “For me (the Masters) is the best tournament to watch…the best players in the world being together, (the traditions like) the green jacket, Augusta National, the conditioning, the scenery,” says Penge, who finished second to Rory McIlroy in the Race to Dubai European rankings to secure the first of 10 PGA Tour cards offered to top DP World Tour finalists.
Penge will be one to watch at Augusta. When he recently played the first two rounds with McIlroy at the HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship, golf fans saw his prodigious power off the tee and powerful iron play. Penge led the DP World Tour last season in strokes gained off the tee. He averaged 319 yards and nearly 60 percent of the fairways.
Apart from his devastating length, the boy from Horsham, West Sussex, has an interesting journey from the football fields of the English Premier League (EPL) in England to one of the most remarkable progressions in the world rankings and on the PGA Tour.
Penge, a tall and athletic man, has Italian heritage through his father, an aerial engineer. Penge was a talented goalscorer as a teenager and even trialled with football clubs Reading FC and Southampton FC, both of whom played in the EPL.
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“When I was 13, dad told me: you have to choose football or golf,” Penge said. “I’m glad I chose golf, but I would have liked to try (football) and see where I would have gone. I was number 10, so I sat in front of the midfield (position). Football is my passion. I love golf, but it’s my job. I’m really interested in football strategy and tactics. I’m a big Arsenal (FC) fan.”
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Marco Penge finished second behind Rory McIlroy in the DP World Tour standings.
Andrew Redington
Penge says he has taken the heat of competition from football to golf. This was on full display in October last year when, ranked No. 406 in the Official World Golf Rankings, he retained his DP World Tour card by a single putt. At the tour event in Korea, he made a birdie putt to qualify and place among the top 115 who retained their cards. Just 14 months later, he is world number 30.
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“That putt gave me confidence,” Penge said. When asked if he would face more difficult putting in 2025, he said “definitely not.”
Penge believes he is one of several players on the lower rungs of the world rankings who are potentially 12 months away from a huge year.
“I think in less than 12 months, a week, you could have a terrible year and things come together and you end up winning,” he said. “The impact this will have on your confidence and belief going forward is huge.”
Giving up his job in Korea was particularly impressive, given that a rule infraction was hanging over his head. A DP World Tour disciplinary panel found that Penge had bet on several golf events – not on himself or tournaments he was playing in – in 2022 and 2023. The DP World Tour found that the integrity of these events “had not been compromised” and Bunkered magazine reported that average bets were only around £24. But Penge was sentenced to a three-month suspension, with one month suspended. In an interview with Bunkered last month, Penge said the break was “a blessing in disguise” because he changed his swing coach and his daily approach to tournament preparation. He admitted his mistakes. “I broke the rules” Penge told Bunkered. “Ever since I was a young boy, I bet on the majors and all that… It was never my intention or my understanding, but I broke the rules.”
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Two months after his return to competition, Penge triumphed at the Hainan Classic in China in April for his first DP World Tour victory. In August, he birdied the final hole to defeat Dane Rasmus Hojgaard at the Danish Golf Championship. In October, he defeated Dan Brown in a playoff to win the Spanish Open.
“China was a huge achievement because winning the DP World Tour was a dream when I was a kid,” says Penge. “Winning in Denmark was different because I was the underdog against Denmark’s best player and their home crowd. (The Spanish Open) was probably the biggest tournament I won from a history point of view with names on the trophy like Seve (Ballesteros) and Jon Rahm.”
So what’s next? After the Australian PGA at Royal Queensland, the 2032 Olympics golf course in Brisbane, Penge will compete again on the DP World Tour at the Nedbank Golf Challenge next week. He will then move with his wife and son from the United Kingdom to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, to collect his 2026 PGA Tour card.
However, it seems Penge’s heart will remain with the DP World Tour. He intends to have a decent schedule of European events in the fall of 2026 once the PGA Tour season concludes.
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“I’m obviously looking forward to playing at Bay Hill, Riviera and Torrey Pines, but the ones I’m most looking forward to are the Players Championship and the (WM) Phoenix Open,” he said. “I want to compete in the majors and try to get a win next year on the PGA Tour. That would be pretty cool for my first season. I want to be in contention as much as possible.
“I think the DP World Tour, for me, is a tour that I really want to support; that’s why I’m here (in Australia) this week. I want to try to play at least 10 times next year on the DP World Tour, so hopefully I can be successful on the PGA Tour, (and) not have to play the fall events and come back to Europe. That’s my goal.”
In Australia on Wednesday, Penge spoke to reporters and said he would soon relax and soak in what he had accomplished this year.
“The experience I had in Abu Dhabi and Dubai (with) the Ryder Cup boys there, and the feeling of having earned their respect,” Penge said when asked about the most rewarding compliments he had received. “All the guys were saying what a good job I did.
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“But my career is moving forward now, I have proven a lot and achieved a lot. At the same time, I want to earn more and (now I have) a feeling of freedom. I hope I can complete a few more in the next few years.”
