Marco Penge: What's In The Bag?

A special treat, we've got last week's winner with us, we've got Marco Penz

You look like a very happy man, am I right? You are indeed. Yeah, over the moon, on cloud nine, really

What a week for you, sort of life-changing stuff. We've got a few juniors here, so apologies for any of yours coming in here

We've got a little bit of moving parts. We're going to delve into your bag and see what propelled you to victory

and what's been helping you play so well. So, Mizuno staff player, right? How long have you been with Mizuno

I think this is my fourth year now. So, yeah, I've built a really nice relationship with them

and, you know, they've been great since day one, really. Do you know, I'm going to chat to them about this separately, but as a very high-speed player

so you're the top 1% of the 1%, right? Is it difficult for them

There's stuff they have to do differently for your equipment than some of the other players who don't have quite the speed

I think so. My lofts and my irons are pretty strong. The shafts are kind of hard-stepped

A lot of tweaking around is quite fine margins to get it right. So, yeah, all credit to them for my success, really

Are you someone who takes a lot of interest in the equipment side? You're a bit of a gear guy or you kind of let them get on with it and you just play what you're told

I kind of let them get on with it. I obviously have my feelings and pretty self-aware of when something's not quite right

But, you know, they're the professionals at that. So I kind of start the way and leave them to it

Good decision. Seems to be working well. So we're in an older driver. So in the STX, the 230 STX, this had like a slight draw bias to it

Was sort of designed to help shape the ball a little bit. What's your thought? How did you end up here out of all the drivers we've tested

I think it's just, that's the first driver I had with Mizuno and it's just been great since I've had it really

Predominantly, I shape the ball predominantly left to right off the tee, slowly trying to draw the ball more

But again, that's another place that's really tough for me with the speed. You know, I'm trying to, with my speed

keeping the spin down with a fade is quite key because I hit that shot a lot

But then when I've got that in a good place, it's then hard to turn the ball right to left. So it's just finding the balance really

So is that why, if you're predominantly left to right off the tee and that seems to be your stock shot

is that why we've introduced mini driver further down? Is that something you can turn a really a bit easier? Yeah, something I can turn right to left with ease, yeah

You know, I can move, I can barely hit a cut with that mini driver. It's, you know, it's kind of stock shot moves

10, 15 yards right to left, whereas a stock shot with driver moves 10, 15 yards left to right

So got a nice little balance there between the two. And, you know, at times I'd like to be able to draw it

with driver, but you can't whisper too much. Can't have everything, can you

So shaft wise, we're in quite meaty shafts. We're in Ventus, is it Black T

Yeah, it is Black TR, 7X, quite heavy. So again, matching up with your speeds

I guess you need stability here. Do you know stuff, do you take an interest in kind of how much they're tipped, things like that

Do you know that kind of stuff? Kind of leave it to the guys, yeah, leave it to the guys

But just something very, very strong. Grip wise, you're in a Golf Pride, tall velvet

Couple of layers. Round, two layers of tape. Is that the same throughout the set? throughout yeah always been the same i used to be the multi-compound up until last year

then my hands were my hands were getting torn apart i think it's multi-compound the gold

bit more cord yeah so just a bit rougher i've gone to these just as it's a bit easier on the hands

when you're practicing yeah right yeah okay cool so down into mini drive now this area your bag i've

sort of looking at a bit earlier in the year and it seems to be the one bit that sort of does chop

and change a bit you might have mini and i saw you with a bit more standard three at one point i I saw you at one tournament with just driver, one iron, two irons and no fairway woods at all

How does that sort of process formulate if you know what you're going to put in the bag

does that change week to week or do you feel like you're in a settled place now? I'm in a settled place now, the reason why it used to chop and change a lot is because I'm

no good with a three wood to be honest. I've never had confidence in hitting a three wood off the tee

so I been so confident with my two iron and my driver it kind of been a bit of a hole in with my bag in a way and you know I did a bit of experimenting with the Mini Driver and it been awesome since I had it So yeah it filled a really nice gap in the bag it in there to draw basically

Do you hit it off the deck much or is it more of a...? Yeah it's pretty versatile in that way, you can hit different flights with it

the spin rate is really consistent but like I said it's mainly in the bag to move the ball

right to left when I need to so I like to hit Driver a lot, so yeah it only really comes out if

a whole doesn't suit driver really we were discussing tactics for this week off camera weren't

we the word full send was used a couple of times so we could be there um same shaft um as in profile

as in driver just going up in weight into the 8x benton black tr so again really stable product

nothing on the loft sleeve just playing standard loft at 13.5 cool then we go into this two on i

saw a couple of ludicrous shots last week in denmark with this driving par fours with two irons over

trees how long has this been in and what you love about it so we've got the fly high in the black

finish hybrid shaft 10 tx ventus black it's um yeah i mean before i was any good i'd say it was

i couldn't really hit the key to ball on the planet in the past so this was like a big

replacement for driver when driver wasn't behaving uh in my earlier days now it's yeah you know i

still use it when drivers misbehaving but it's very again can hit different

flights of it I would never go away from having a two iron in my bag it's kind of

quite a big asset of mine and it's all 173 ball speed off one of those I said to my caddy after I

hit it I said that's all I've got yeah and then see it after on video it's pretty cool it's actually

quite cool scrolling down the comments of people that was a joke say it some people were saying

it can't be 175 blah blah but it was so i was watching i know it is i'm absolutely certain it is

um so yeah so moving then into the irons i think you've got the best looking set of irons

but in the game today so you've got the pro s3s um from mizuna you've got a nice little bit of

custom stamping on the toe and you said shaft wise we're so we're in the kbs v10 130 hard step as

well right yeah just purely to keep you speed keep the spin down yeah spin's always been a big issue

for me um i used to be i actually funny enough last week i tweaked my loss two degrees weaker

before the week um so you're saying they were generally they've generally been pretty strong

three four degrees strong so you've gone weaker but you're still strong to standard if you like

yeah still strong to standard but yeah it's quite a bold decision last week to weaken them um but

i was seeing things in there that you know i was struggling to kind of hit a nice high tower in

long iron um in the short you know pitching wedge nine iron was tough to take distance out of it so

had a little experiment really last week for kind of next year playing in america was i'm trying to

get ready for that really and keep the ball higher into the firmer green so yeah when you've gone as

much as like three four degrees strong do you notice any difference in a the offset because

obviously when you're taking loft off you put tend to put more offset on b they you can take bounce

off as well do you notice any difference in turf interaction or did they yes i used to use the

the blades um that's the reason i went to these was because of the turf interaction i was i was

losing the bounce especially with the stronger stronger setup um apparently my irons are pretty

offset already i don't really have a that's kind of what i see as standard uh so i don't notice

anything too you get used to what you see don't you playing stronger lofts and they've been nudged Exactly

You get used to them. Yeah, these have been awesome. The boys last week obviously did a great job

leading into the week and prepped really well. Who does that come from then when you go

you just decided to weaken them up? Is it you decided? You just saw some stuff and you took them on the trek

Or do they monitor that with you? I think it could be a mix of both, but last week was more me saying to Joe at Mizuno

that I said to him look I want to do some experimenting with making my loss weaker You know I improved so much this year in terms of shots that I able to hit now

I can grip down it, I can take speed out of it. So I don't have to fight spin as

much as I used to. Before everything used to be a bit flat out and just

wasn't quite as good. So I said to him, look if we could, I want to help, I want

help from the irons to get the ball in the air, I can hit, I can take fly out of it

if I want to. So yeah, we just made the gapping in the bag

a lot more consistent really. Kind of three, four degrees throughout rather than three in some areas

and five, six degree gap in another area. Certainly seemed to pay off last week then

Into wedges, so we go into Vokeys, SM10s. We've got 50, 56 and 60

So we're in a fairly standard full sole F-grind in the 50. We've got the M-grind at 08 and 56

And the K-star grind, which we've seen a lot of, it looks like it's had a bit of extra work as well

What do you like to see in your wedges? And are you someone who kind of chops and changes wedges

depending on course and- Yeah, I change the 60 a lot. I use a K-star and the A+, I think it's called

Yeah, I saw you tossing the A-plus out before we came home. I've had the back worn off a lot out of them both

because I play everything pretty open. I'm not one that plays chips stacked, like square face

So I like to open the face up. Just find when the ground gets too firm

I kind of get like a, I could fat it, but not from a leading edge, more from the back of the bounce

So we've had that worn off. Yeah, and it's been a big improvement in my game

At what stage do you make the decisions? Obviously, we're on the practice ground here with a couple of lob wedges in the bag

You're presumably going out to play in a little while. Is it you're going to take them both out and hit a few shots around the greens with each and then

Or do you kind of, having played a few of these courses before, I guess you've got an idea of what might be in... Yeah

Excuse me, I have a pretty rough idea from the off, really. It's not so much in the pitching

it's all about around the green for me so um like i said i play a lot of my wedge my chip shots open

face so 56 i kind of turn into a 58 60 anyway um but as soon as i hit one or two chips i kind of

know whether i need something grinding down or whether i need the other kind of option and that's

more turf for you than sand or do you factor that in as well more turf but sand does come into it

but it depends again you know how often do i think i'm going to be in a bunker around the greens

how often am I going to be hitting off tight fairways, is it mainly rough

So it's kind of- Got to weigh it all out. Weighing up the options of what the priority is

And shaft wise in the wedges, so we've got 7.0 Project X in a lob wedge

So a lot of people tend to go softer down the bag when they're taking speed off. Is that just a weight thing for you

Yeah, I think so. And again, I leave the lads to it

That's a wedge shaft in that one. The 50's got my iron shaft in

So 50's got Iron Shaft in, the 56 has got a wedge version of the Project X, 7.0 still in terms of Plex, and the 60's just got a stock Project X 7.0

I mean, like I said, I don't know enough about it, or it's kind of like, you know, my clubs would be the last thing to blame in a way, so it's kind of, unless I'm seeing something really strange, it's the majority of the time it's me

so but yeah like i said the bounce on the wedges are the main thing in that area of the game

the irons for me is um you know the leading edge again interaction with the turf loss spin rates

being consistent uh i'll probably do a bit of that today with the lads was a little bit unsure

on last week whether i took too much loft out of it or added too much loft sorry um i just need them

to clarify that for me cool interesting and finally on to putter so i've seen you dabble in this is i

I love this one, this is a bit of tour sauce. I saw you, you've been in some more blade style putters

you switched over to a mallet style putter. So you got the Scotty Cameron Circle T5 one little alignment line on the leading edge What do you love about this Other than it keeps going in right now Yeah I love the top line really The top line a big one for me

You know, I was loving the blade. I was using the SuperRat which is pretty cool. You know, a nice good looking bit of kit and quite great with the SuperRat but it had a line

on the back and then the dot on top whereas this has got the line on the top so it sits flush with

my line on the ball so that's the main reason why I'm using that over the blade at the moment but

I'm one that can chop and change with my power more from a comfort standpoint. And ball wise so

someone who spins the ball an awful lot of you do you try and control that with ball as well? Again I you know last year stronger irons stronger loss was using the left up everything was towards

low launch low spin made some technical changes with my coach this year able to hit more variety

of shots I've kind of seeing myself go back you know now I'm in the 25v which is similar to the

left top but not as not as low launching and then obviously again with the irons making them weaker

everything at the minute is kind of going towards spin yeah so I think that's a good sign for me

that I'm doing the right things but predominantly as a high speed player spin is the issue

majority of time it's just trying to find that balance. Just for me you said something

earlier about back when I wasn't very good yeah and I've been pretty like what does I just want

to know for me here what what does that look like and you said you've just made some technical changes um so presumably some swing mechanics stuff then you said you're um you're better at

in partial shots now is it just like the whole package did you how did that come about did you

sort of assess yourself and go this isn't it yeah here's where I need to go yeah uh you know after

I had a break I sat down with my short game coach who's now teaching me through everything Alex

no um i said to him you mentioned alex on the pod a couple of times yeah yeah he's awesome

uh i said you know i felt like before this year i was only kind of at 25 of my potential and

something that was really bugging me um you know i knew i know i can hit grip down shots i know i

can hit knock down shots but i couldn't do it consistently under pressure and that's something

that i wanted to that i wasn't going to accept for this year and we put tons of work in trying to

gain them 1% and get good at everything. I don't want to be known to be this guy that just hits it far

I want to be known as an all-round player and that can win anywhere. So that's been the main goal, to be honest

Everything's working towards that. So yeah, just more control, moving the ball left to right, right to left

bringing the spin down, being good with my numbers. I'm inside 150

I use the stats, Eduardo Molinari, for stats. every week sitting down going through them and yeah it's just a massive work in progress working

environment to be honest and we we spoke about um my stats before last week about how

inside 150 i don't hit it close enough okay i hit my proximity is pretty good but i don't hit it

close enough enough which i guess is pretty key for you because the way you drive yeah you're

going to be in inside that number and then it's the opposite outside of 180 i short side myself

too much. Game plan was kind of like doing the same misses with everything, it wasn't

like going further away from the flag as we got further away. So last week we decided

from 150 and in to go at the flags and then outside of 170 to just hit the green or the

fat side of the green. That was our plan and we did that really well last week

You did, yeah. Yeah, it's just all the work behind the scenes really is paying off and it's really nice

for my team to get that reward as well as me because without them I wouldn't be where I am today

Mate, you're becoming one of the most popular players on the tour, people love watching you, people love clipping up your bombs and seeing that

It's been a great season so far. I hope for a really big end to the season because there's a couple of big events on the rise

Thank you. That's it. We will see