The top of the leaderboard would not be impacted by this; it was far more significant.
Playing for his living, 26-year-old professional Marco Penge of Horsham, Sussex, was finishing up his first full year on the DP World Tour. His employment was on the line amid the last rays of a late and still hot Friday afternoon in South Korea.
“It’s probably the most nervous I’ve ever been,” acknowledged Penge, the 2023 Portuguese Open winner.
It was an easy equation. Given the dire situation, the mission is everything but. To make the cut at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club of Korea, he had to make a birdie on the last hole.
He wouldn’t have the opportunity to do enough during the weekend to keep his card if he didn’t get up and down on the final par-five at the Genesis Championship.
A return to the more modest surroundings of the Challenge Tour or the agony of qualifying school beckoned. He could have wasted the most valuable moment in anyone’s life by being apart from his newborn baby for weeks.
