Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship: Penge flexes muscles to earn approval from Race to Dubai rival McIlroy

In such celebrated company, there were bound to be nerves. “I know on Thursday morning when I step on the tee, I’m going to have some adrenaline because I'm playing with one of the best players in the world for the first time,” Marco Penge said on the eve of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

“I’m fully aware of it, already in my head that that’s how I’m going to feel. But I clarified with my psychologist that I tend to play my best golf when I feel like that. It’s nothing to be scared of.”

And, as it turned out, he was fine. The 27-year-old Englishman, who is chasing down Rory McIlroy at the top of the Race to Dubai, laced his opening tee shot at Yas Links with all the calmness of a seasoned champ.

His celebrated playing partner? Not so much. So wayward was McIlroy’s tee shot at the first, he opted to play a provisional, just in case.

It is handy that, even at 9.23am on a weekday in Abu Dhabi, he has such a sizeable gallery that follows him. It meant that all could be employed as a search party.

In the end, it was Penge’s caddie who discovered the TaylorMade ball marked “Rors” under a tufty shrub on the native area a distance to the left of the fairway.

McIlroy forced it up onto the green, made par, and was already a shot down on Penge.

The Northern Irishman has a little less than a 500-point lead at the top of the Race to Dubai standings, with Abu Dhabi this week and the DP World Tour Championship next week still remaining.

He spoke ahead of the play-offs of his pleasure at having to “lock in” to stave off Penge and the rest of the chasers, in order to win a fourth successive race.

He was also clearly intrigued to see how he measured up against the big-hitting Englishman with the driver. That particular discipline has been McIlroy’s superpower on this tour for the best part of two decades, but Penge is of the next generation of power players.

“He should be longer,” McIlroy reasoned on Wednesday of the incoming longest drive contest between the two. “He’s nine years younger than me.”

Penge struck the first blow in the contest within the contest when he outdrove McIlroy at the Par-5 second. His 377-yard monster ended in the middle of the fairway, setting him up for an eagle to go with the birdie he made at the first. McIlroy’s effort had been a mere 355 yards.

There was still plenty of life left in the 36-year-old’s driver, though. McIlroy drove the green at the 394-yard 10^th hole. Penge, for his part, fell short of that mark, and carded a bogey.

By the end of the 18-hole slugfest, McIlroy was signing for a 4-under par 68, while Penge was one stroke better.

“He’s a flusher,” McIlroy said after his first time in Penge’s company. “He’s got a great ball flight, and obviously drives the ball really, really well. He’s a really, really strong player.”

Penge was satisfied with his day’s work, which left him three off the lead at the time they finished, and was thrilled to have spent the day in the company of one of his heroes.

“Rory wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but it was cool to play with a grand slam winner and a legend of European golf and world golf,” Penge said. “It was nice to have a chat, also, on the way around.”

McIlroy endorsed the assessment that he had been some way short of his best. With calm weather, Yas had few defences against the best players in the world.

By the time McIlroy and Co were packing their clubs into the boots of the tournament courtesy cars and heading off, only six of the 72-man field were over par, and there were five players sharing the lead on 8-under.

That included two of Europe’s Ryder Cup winning stars, Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood, who had enjoyed a jovial jaunt round Yas in each other’s company.

McIlroy is optimistic he can still contend for a first Falcon Trophy, though, as he hopes to drain more putts over the rest of the week than he managed on the opening day.

“It’s getting there,” McIlroy said of his game. “Hopefully that’s my worst round out of the way. It wasn’t terrible by all means.

“I drove the ball well and felt like the driver was good. I have a new driver in the bag this week, so that was a positive.

“The wind got up a little bit that last hour and a half, and felt like I controlled my ball well in the wind and hit some good iron shots. I just need to convert a few more of the chances that I was giving myself.”