{"id":26577,"date":"2025-11-12T13:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/rorys-main-rival-penji-prepares-for-dubai-title-from-hospital-bed\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:30:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:30:55","slug":"rorys-main-rival-penji-prepares-for-dubai-title-from-hospital-bed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/rorys-main-rival-penji-prepares-for-dubai-title-from-hospital-bed\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory&#8217;s main rival Penji prepares for Dubai title from hospital bed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Marco Penge needs his biggest win in a breakout year on the European Tour if Rory McIlroy is to miss out on another Race to Dubai season title.<\/p>\n<p>However, there&#8217;s a problem. Penge, McIlroy&#8217;s main rival in this tournament, was laid up with an illness earlier this week and has had little chance to see the Earth course.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1112%2Fr1574621_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1112%2Fr1574621_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1112%2Fr1574621_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1112%2Fr1574621_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Instead, Penge revealed Wednesday that he relied on watching McIlroy on YouTube to gain insight into what McIlroy has to produce at this week&#8217;s World Tour Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was actually lying in bed yesterday watching Rory play all four rounds from last year on YouTube,\u201d Penge said. &#8220;So I felt like I had a pretty good idea before I came here today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was watching what holes he hits the driver on and things like that. And I\u2019ll watch him play again tomorrow and get a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the British golfer will be paired with McIlroy for the first two rounds of the season finale in Dubai, as he did at last week&#8217;s Abu Dhabi Championship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m approaching this week watching Rory play golf and making the most of that experience. I&#8217;m learning from him, like I did in the first two rounds last week. He has more experience than me and is currently ranked No. 2 in the world,&#8221; Penge said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I\u2019m just trying to be in his shadow and chase him all over the golf course,\u201d he added with a laugh.<\/p>\n<p>Penge is second in the Race to Dubai rankings, about 767 points behind McIlroy. For McIlroy to undergo a complete overhaul, either Penge, a three-time winner on this year&#8217;s tour, would have to win and McIlroy could hope to finish worse than a solo second place, or the Northern Irishman would need to finish tied for second to move down the leaderboard.<\/p>\n<p>Although he was off the course Monday and Tuesday, Penge was able to play at least nine holes Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s pretty new to me,&#8221; Penge said. &#8220;It&#8217;s still a golf course, it&#8217;s still got fairways and greens, so I guess that&#8217;s the plan. As you can see, all you have to do is hit it straight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marco Penge needs his biggest win in a breakout year on the European Tour if Rory McIlroy is to miss out on another Race to Dubai season title. However, there&#8217;s a problem. Penge, McIlroy&#8217;s main rival in this tournament, was laid up with an illness earlier this week and has had little chance to see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17],"class_list":{"0":"post-26577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}