DP World Tour pro, Marco Penge has enjoyed a steady rise throughout his entire amateur and professional career, with much of his journey also experienced by wife, Sophie.
The pair have been together romantically since February 2015, when they were both teenagers and aspiring pro golfers, and have gone on to get married in July 2023 before welcoming their first son, Enzo, in June 2024.
A decade before that magic moment, and months before they started dating, the Penges became the first two Boys’ and Girls’ Fairhaven Trophy Champions to successfully defend their titles in the same years (2013 and 2014).
Just a year after they became an item, Penge and Sophie Lamb - as she was called at the time - clinched the Sunningdale Foursomes title. Their success arrived in their first attempt at competing together and featured a close call in the first round as well as a battle with food poisoning for Penge on the final day.
But in the end, they thumped Lewis Atkinson and Scott Marshall 5&4 to secure the prestigious title.
Speaking to Sussex World about the victory with the woman he would go on to marry, Penge said: “I have played in the Sunningdale foursomes twice before with different playing partners each time. I reached the semi-finals both times so this year I was determined to make it third time lucky.
“They [Atkinson and Marshall] had hit a great shot into the green and Sophie had hit our ball to the rough just off the green. I then chipped in and it was game over, we were the champions.
"I was still feeling ill and didn’t really show any emotion as I just wanted to get back to the clubhouse. Now I am feeling better I am so pleased that Sophie and I have won this tournament together.
“We really enjoyed the experience and can’t wait to see our names on the champions board at Sunningdale. We may possibly be the youngest pairing to have won it. To win an event like this at the age of 17 and 18 is a great achievement for both of us and something we will remember.”
That same year, Lamb also won the British Women's Stroke Play Championship as she continued her sparkling amateur career which later took in an appearance at the 2017 Women's Open and the 2018 Curtis Cup.
Among Lamb's other achievements included winning the low amateur at the 2017 AIG Women's Open and taking second place at the 2018 English Amateur.
She went on to earn starts on the LET Access Series in 2019 and harboured aspirations of making the Ladies European Tour, according to an interview conducted midway through 2020.
However, the woman from Clitheroe in England saw her life take a different path and - in June 2022 - Lamb announced she was retiring from pro golf.
In a statement on Instagram, she said: "I’ve been thinking for a while how to write this and it’s hard to put it into words. I have decided I will no longer play golf professionally.
"Being a professional golfer was my dream as a little girl & I'm so blessed to have been able to give it a go. The highs & lows are unexplainable. The highs are incredible, you feel so confident, everything feels easy & it seems like the best place in the world to be. The hundreds of messages popping through your phone after a good score/tournament would make anyone feel on top of the world & full of confidence.
"The lows are incredibly difficult, sitting in hotel rooms dwelling on your finish or performance, missing the cut to realise you won’t make any money that week. The feeling of being defined by a score. The feeling of only being known as a ‘golfer.’ The feeling that you’ve let people down. The extremes are insane."
According to her LinkedIn, Penge has recently worked as an operations and marketing coordinator at Per4m Health before taking maternity leave to care for the pair's son.
Although not on the professional scene, Sophie Penge is often seen either publicly supporting Marco at tournaments or posting congratulatory messages to her husband after he achieves something in his own career.
