Aaron Doster-Imagn Images
You might think a golfer who’s good enough to play on the PGA Tour wouldn’t have much trouble finding a country club willing to add him to its ranks. However, Marco Penge says he got shut down by multiple courses in Florida before he managed to find one that accepted his membership bid.
Golf’s reputation as an elitist sport is inextricably linked to the notoriously stuffy private country clubs that can still serve as a major status symbol for the people who belong to them.
They are a dying breed, but they certainly exist; after all, it’s been less than 25 years since Augusta National decided to sacrifice two years of advertising revenue during The Masters instead of caving to protests concerning its unwritten policy to not accept female members (a glass ceiling that remained intact until 2012).
It would be unfair to paint those establishments with a wide brush, as there are plenty of country clubs that make an active effort to distance themselves from the kind of places that give them a bad name. However, there are still more than a few holdouts who insist on clinging to tradition while adhering to a longstanding set of principles, many of which pride themselves on their exclusivity.
They tend to put prospective members through the wringer in their search for the ideal applicant, and it turns out being a member of the PGA Tour only does so much to increase your chances of having a membership bid accepted at some of them.
PGA Tour rookie Marco Penge got turned down by multiple country clubs after trying to find a new one to join in Florida
Marco Penge was born and raised in England and started playing on the European Tour after turning pro in 2017.
Last year, he earned a second-place finish in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai to secure a spot on the PGA Tour for the 2026 season, and he’ll be making his debut at the Farmers Insurance Open while occupying the 30th spot in the Official World Golf Ranking.
His invitation to regularly go head-to-head with the best players on the planet necessitated a move to the United States, and Penge decided to join the many golfers who call Florida home by setting up shop in West Palm Beach.
Palm Beach and the surrounding area are filled with some wildly exclusive country clubs including Jupiter Hills, Emerald Dunes, McArthur Golf Club, and Seminole (which once turned down Jack Nicklaus); the kind of places where you may not only need to know a member (or a few) to even be considered but will be asked to join as opposed to the other way around.
It’s not entirely clear which clubs Penge set his eyes on when he arrived, but according to Golf Monthly, having a PGA Tour card was not enough to merit admission to two of them based on what the 27-year-old had to say ahead of this week’s tournament at Torrey Pines:
“I’m actually at Old Palm. They’re like a real family-oriented golf club and super chill.
I did try and join a couple of others, but kind of got turned away a little bit. I was kind of a little too casual, I think…It’s nice to be at a golf club that wants to have me there.”
At least he found one in the end.