Gregorio De Leo comes close to podium finish at Danish Golf Championship
Gregorio De Leo finished in fourth place at the Danish Golf Championship with a total of 273 strokes (68 69 68, -11), signing his personal best and on the DP World Tour. The azure also lit up the tournament with a “hole-in-one” feat on the Furesø Golf Klub (par 71) course in Copenhagen.
The competition was dominated by the duel between England’s Marco Penge and Denmark’s Rasmus Højgaard, the protagonists of a head-to-head match that began as early as the second round and was decided only on the last hole. Penge, 27, of Horsham, closed with 268 strokes (64 68 69 67, -16), narrowly beating the home idol (269, -15), thanks to a winning birdie after Højgaard had made an eagle. Thus, for the Dane, an encore after his triumph in the 2023 National Open fades.
In third was England’s Ben Schmidt (272, -12), never really in contention for the title, while De Leo and Sweden’s Mikael Lindberg shared fourth place. Sixth at 275 (-9) were Norway’s Kristoffer Reitan and Australia’s Elvis Smylie; eighth with 276 (-8) were the U.S.’s Johannes Veerman and Finns Sami Välimäki and Oliver Lindell.
Coming back in the final round was Francesco Molinari, who with a 69 (-2) recovered twelve positions to finish 16th at -4 (66 75 70 69). Penalizing for him was a 75 in the second round, the same score that also affected the defending champion, France’s Frédéric Lacroix, who also finished at -4.
For Penge, this is his second win of the season on the DP World Tour, following the Hainan Classic in April, adding to his past successes on the HotelPlanner Tour (2) and the PGA EuroPro Tour (1). The success in Denmark has a special value: in addition to the $467,500 first coin on a prize pool of $2.75 million, the Englishman took the top spot in the “Closing Swing,” the last of the five “Global Swings” in which the calendar was divided. A triumph that also earns him a $200,000 bonus, an exemption for the next nine tournaments (“Back 9”) and the certainty of a place at the prestigious BMW PGA Championship (Sept. 11-14, England), a highlight stage of the Rolex Series.
