Lossiemouth star in making in 2015 now showing he's the real deal

Step forward Marco Penge, who holed a knee-knocker in the Genesis Championship in Korea just under 12 months ago to hang on to his DP World Tour card and, lo and behold, is now a three-time winner on the circuit this season after adding the Espana Open presented by Madrid on Sunday to earlier title triumphs in the Hainan Classic and Danish Golf Championship.

On the back of his latest eye-catching victory, the Englishman is now less than 400 points behind Masters champion McIlroy in the Race to Dubai Rankings, setting up an exciting finish in the battle for the coveted Harry Vardon Trophy.

Bidding to be crowned as the circuit’s No 1 for a fourth year in a row and seventh time in total, McIlroy, having cemented his position at the top of the standings with a dramatic win in the Amgen Irish Open last month, is still going to be hard to beat, especially as he’s making an appearance in this week’s inaugural $4 million DP World India Championship while Penge recharges his batteries.

Even so, it will be good for the two Play-Off events - the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and DP World Tour Championship in Dubai - next month that at least one player will have a chance of catching McIlroy and don’t rule that possibility out because Penge just gets better and better.

There were some people who felt he should have been on Luke Donald’s team for the recent Ryder Cup and, in fairness, he was in with a shout until coming up just short in the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo - the final event in a year-long qualifying campaign.

Personally, though, I didn’t think he was quite ready for a Ryder Cup on US soil and there can be no denying, surely, that Matthew Fitzpatrick well and truly vindicated his captain’s pick by producing his best performance so far in the biennial event. Shane Lowry, too, of course.

Helped by the fact he’ll be playing on the PGA Tour next season, Penge will be well and truly ready to face the Americans in Ireland, however, and then again at Hazeltine in four years’ time, having emerged as the leading light in the next wave of players bidding to follow in the footsteps of Ludvig Aberg, Bob MacIntyre and the Hojgaard twins - Nicolai and Rasmus - and become what McIlroy has described in the past as the “future of the Ryder Cup” from a European perspective.

As is the case with lots of players - an American-based Irish journalist always likes to pull my leg about how I always refer to Brooks Koepka as the 2013 Scottish Hydro Challenge winner as opposed to a five-time major champion - Penge first caught my eye when tasting success on Scottish soil. Though not there in person, he won the Scottish Stroke-Play Championship - now called the Scottish Men’s Open - at Moray Golf Club in 2015.

Penge was just 17 when he posted a 278 total at the Lossiemouth venue to pip Glenbervie’s Greame Robertson by a shot as he joined compatriots Tommy Fleetwood and Andy Sullivan in getting his name on the trophy after their successes in 2009 at Murcar and 2011 at Blairgowrie respectively. Other players who finished behind Penge on the Moray coast included Australian Lucas Herbert, who has gone on to win on both the DP World Tour and PGA Tour, and three-time DP World Tour champion Ewen Ferguson.

He was a star in the making, yet, and this should serve as encouragement to those players who are looking for overnight success but struggle at first to make headway in the paid ranks, Penge took eight years to fulfil his potential.

“Everyone gets there at their own pace and needs to learn things at a different pace,” he told me in Mallorca just under two years ago after securing his step up to the DP World Tour in style by landing a six-shot success in the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A. “I feel this has come at a good time for me. I felt last year I wasn’t ready for it, but I am getting there and becoming a more complete player.”

That week at Club de Golf Alcanada in Port d’Alcudia, he used a 2-iron to dazzling effect but, at the same time, you were left wondering if he was one of those players who sprayed it all over the place with a driver. Like all big-hitters, he can indeed be prone to being a tad wild at times, but he’s +1.05 in strokes gained off the tee on the DP World Tour this season and, significantly, sits above McIlroy, who is +0.87.

What makes it remarkable, really, is that Penge is with a chance of finishing above McIlroy in the Race to Dubai despite being forced to sit out part of this season after receiving a three-month ban - with one month suspended for a year - and also fined £2,000 by the DP World Tour for betting breaches.

“Yeah, I think the delayed start to the year - we all know what happened there - turned out to be great for me,” Penge, who secured spots in both The Masters and The Open next year through his Spanish success, told this correspondent during the aforementioned Betfred British Masters. “I had time to sit down with my team for a couple of months, work hard in the gym, work hard at my technique, spend some time with my family and friends. Yeah, it gave me a massive drive to come back and show what I can do.”

Hat’s off as he’s done that already and you feel there is more to come.