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Ryan Peake will take Royal Portrush on Thursday, and how he got this opportunity is different from any other person in the field.
That is because the Australian golfer won the New Zealand Open five years after half a decade spent in prison.
Peake was a talented Junior golfer who became professional when he was 19 years old. But, according to the BBC, Peake was “burned” of the game and joined the rebels, a prohibited motorcycle gang, two years after becoming a professional.
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Ryan Peake of Australia celebrates with the New Zealand open trophy after winning the New Zealand Open 2025 in Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty images)
“I was normalized to that,” Peake said, now 31, about joining the motorcyclist gang. “It was not abnormal from where it was to hang out in that kind of scene with my friends.
“It’s something I found love and enjoyed it. I was interested in that, and I found something there that I felt that I had not found anywhere else.”
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Peake was a “bikie”, but being part of a lifestyle outside the law means the risk of fulfilling time in prison, which is what happened after assaulting someone who said he was “making threats to us.”
“We simply dealt with that and, honestly, it was not destined to happen like that,” Peake explained, according to the BBC. “We were usually going to chat, and I was probably going to get a couple of blows on the road, and left it.”
Peake landed in a maximum security correctional installation, and it was there that he decided that “he wanted to achieve better things.”
The former winner of the Open Championship, Ian Baker-Finch, congratulates Ryan Peake of Australia after winning the New Zealand Open 2025 that qualified for the next championship opened in Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty images)
“I didn’t benefit from being a bikie,” Peak said. “I enjoyed the lifestyle as I lived it, but I wasn’t going to move on in life, and I was always going to stay further and probably lead to more jail.”
Peake was a teammate of the 2022 Golfer of the Year Cameron Smith champion at the time he was convicted.
But he returned to golf after jail, and left -handed began to recover his career. Thanks to the help of coach Richie Smith, as well as his family’s support, Peake received his Australasian tour card this season and won his first professional victory in the New Zealand Open.
In turn, Peake won a place in this year’s open championship.
Ryan Peake of Australia celebrates after winning the New Zealand Open 2025 in Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty images)
It will be held with Phil Mickelson and Daniel Van Tinder at 2:19 am et on Thursday to start their tournament.
