Marco Penge is a top-60 player in the world and has five top-25 finishes on the PGA Tour season. But Thursday offered a reminder that even the best players in the world miss one every now and then.
Penge, one of the PGA Tour’s longest hitters, caught a drive so poorly that it was the sort of shot weekend golfers know all too well. During the opening round of the DP World Tour's Open de Espana at Real Club de Campo Villa de Madrid in Spain, Penge got to the tee on the par-5 7th hole and topped his drive a whopping 158 yards.
Penge has built much of his reputation around power. At the Bank of Utah Championship, he averaged 333.7 yards off the tee for the week. This makes this tee shot even more relatable.
Marco Penge tops his drive at the 7th 😲#OpenEspana
pic.twitter.com/poFNrnFPLD
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) October 8, 2026
Penge made double on the hole, and was 2 over at the turn as of 11 a.m. ET.
Back in January, Penge was still trying to find his footing in a new country, on a new tour and with a new life taking shape around him. He had moved from England to West Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife, Sophie, who was pregnant with the couple’s second child. He was preparing for his first full season on the PGA Tour after winning three times on the DP World Tour in 2025 and finishing second in the Race to Dubai.
Penge's first PGA Tour season began with consecutive missed cuts at the Farmers Insurance Open and WM Phoenix Open, but he soon began showing why he'd risen to as high as No. 30 in the world. After a T-64 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he finished T-16 at the Genesis Invitational and then recorded his best PGA Tour finish of the season, a T-4 at the Valspar Championship in March.
He added a T-21 at the Valero Texas Open and made the cut in his Masters debut, finishing T-49 at Augusta National. His summer included a T-18 at The Open at Royal Birkdale, followed by a T-45 at the Rocket Classic and T-38 at the Wyndham Championship.
In the fall, Penge finished T-10 at the Biltmore Championship before a T-68 last week. Through 17 PGA Tour starts in 2026, he had made 11 cuts, posted two top-10 finishes and five top-25s. He also ranked fifth on Tour in driving distance.
But every once in a while, one comes off the clubface looking like the rest of us.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour player known for long drives tops one in relatable moment
