{"id":205960,"date":"2025-10-11T17:55:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/205960\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T17:55:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:55:24","slug":"marco-penge-builds-spanish-open-lead-hopes-fade-for-jon-rahm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/205960\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Penge builds Spanish Open lead; hopes fade for Jon Rahm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MADRID &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"53aa6b41-50b2-c14a-34f5-b3c3e347e47f\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4585549\/marco-penge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marco Penge<\/a> is in position to win the Spanish Open after the Englishman reeled off eight birdies Saturday, while home favorite <a data-player-guid=\"f7192f24-1537-e91b-de6f-3548d5989626\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/9780\/jon-rahm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Rahm<\/a> saw his hopes of landing a record fourth title all but disappear.<\/p>\n<p>Penge went to 16 under for the tournament after shooting a 7-under 64 in the third round. The overnight leader started the day with a third-hole bogey but then went on a red-hot run, going under par on eight out of 10 holes to distance himself from the pack.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whatever the outcome is, it&#8217;s going to be a great experience, great memories for me,&#8221; Penge said. &#8220;Tomorrow doesn&#8217;t define anything. It&#8217;s just another day, an 18-hole round of golf.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/golf\/story\/_\/id\/46542332\/jon-rahm-barks-marshal-first-round-spanish-open\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/r1557875_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Playing partner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/6961\/joel-girrbach\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joel Girrbach<\/a> of Switzerland is his nearest challenger, four shots back. <a data-player-guid=\"fa3b9549-23d2-b301-3907-df16be392045\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/10221\/daniel-brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Brown<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"f35e551e-8602-99fc-d022-187826e10090\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5579\/patrick-reed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Reed<\/a> are five back, followed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4348444\/tom-mckibbin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tom McKibbin<\/a>, who is six behind.<\/p>\n<p>Rahm will need a massive turnaround Sunday after a 71 that included a double bogey. He is 12 shots back and tied for 28th. The Ryder Cup winner is trying to surpass Seve Ballesteros as the tournament&#8217;s most successful golfer since the creation of the European tour in 1972.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old Penge broke his wedge when he got stuck behind a tree on the second hole.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I knew it was going to break,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I kind of picked a club I didn&#8217;t think I was going to need the rest of the way, just made sure not to hit my hand on the tree.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Penge began the day with a one-shot lead. He will now bid for his third tour win after also prevailing this year at the Danish Golf Championship and the Hainan Classic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID &#8212; Marco Penge is in position to win the Spanish Open after the Englishman reeled off eight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-205960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}