What began as a year of frustration for Marco Penge has turned into a chase that few expected. After going winless in 2024, Penge has claimed three titles on the DP World Tour this season. With a win at the Hainan Classic, the Danish Golf Championship, and the Spanish Open, the Englishman sits right below Rory McIlroy on the Race to Dubai rankings. While it is hard to keep up with the World No. 2, Penge is not just keeping up; he can stop McIlroy from achieving a record after a three-month suspension.

Rory McIlroy is on his way to claiming his record 7th Race to Dubai title. Penge is only around 500 points behind the Irish golfer on the points table. While the career grand-slam winner has 4,132.56 points in his name, Penge trails him with 3,691.24 points. When asked about his approach to take over McIlroy and win the Play-Off events, he said, “Yeah, my goal is to try — obviously my goal once I didn’t qualify for the Ryder Cup. I think I played the Irish Open, and I thought, Now my goal is to catch Rory. That goal is kind of over in a way, but now that I’ve won in Spain and got myself back in the mix, I’m trying to win this week or next week or just play as good as I can and see where that ends up.”

The DP World Tour suspended Penge for three months for violating the tour’s Integrity Program. He had placed bets on golf in 2022. Although he didn’t place any bets on matches he played, it’s still a violation of the DP World Tour’s rule. A betting agency informed the tour management about this. Thus, the DP World Tour suspended Marco Penge from December 13, 2024, to February 13, 2025. He even paid a £2,000 fine. Upon returning, the 2025 Spanish Open winner finished T20 in the 2025 Kenya Open, third in the South African Open, and won the Hainan Classic in April 2025. This marked the start of his breakout season.

Winning at the Spanish Open got Penge 835 Race to Dubai points. This took him right below Rory McIlroy, giving him a chance to surpass the 2025 Masters champion. However, it won’t be easy, as Penge has never even experienced playing against the World No. 2. “No. It will be my first time. I actually did ask him in Ireland a couple of months ago to get a practice round at some point, but we haven’t crossed paths, and timing hasn’t worked out. Yeah, I thought I’d try and get a practice round with him next week. I think it would be nice,” Penge said about playing against McIlroy.

While Penge is playing McIlroy for the first time, he has a clear plan. He aims to hit as far as possible to get an early advantage and build up on that. I don’t know. “Obviously, I want to be past him, and I’m sure he wants to be hitting it past me. It will be a bit of a flex on that sort of thing. Bringing their best on the day will probably be the longest. We’ll see,” the Englishman said.

Like Marco Penge, McIlroy has also had an excellent season. Of the nine events he played in 2025, he won the Amgen Irish Open and the Masters. Besides that, he was T2 at the Scottish Open and T4 at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. The two will go toe to toe to win and make their mark. For McIlroy, it will be winning a record DP World Tour title, and for Penge, it will be his first. But there are many others on the field in the Play-Off events who can make it challenging for the two. Tyrrell Hatton, Robert MacIntyre, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, and many others can get a win at the Play-Offs.

The DP World Tour suspension had a significant impact on Penge. He had opened up about it.

Marco Penge on anxiety after suspension

While Penge is playing on the DP World Tour now and enjoying title wins, the suspension period was brutal. Penge revealed that he felt “very upset because it’s out of my nature. It’s not who I am. I never want to upset anyone or get in trouble.” It is not uncommon for golfers to be in the limelight for the wrong reasons. But for some, it affects more than others. And Penge is someone who doesn’t like to be on the wrong side. He experienced a lot of anxiety and even nearly lost his tour card after getting the news.

But thanks to his resilience and support from other golfers and fans, he made a strong comeback. Because of all the amazing support, he was able to build genuine relationships within the golf community. He had said that he received messages from about 100 players after the suspension.

While it was a challenging time, Marco Penge now has three victories this season, ranks 2nd on the Race to Dubai rankings, and sits at 29th on the OWGR, just below the fellow Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick.