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From serving five-year prison sentence as a biker gang member to winning spot in The Open: Australian golfer Ryan Peake’s golfing journey

The 31-year-old Ryan Peake won the New Zealand Open on Sunday to earn a spot The Open at Royal Portrush this year.

A young prodigy in Australian junior golf along with Smith, Ryan Peake became a member of the biker gang in his teens. (X/PGA of Australia)

As a youngster, Ryan Peake once teamed up with future major winner Cameron Smith to win the boys’ title in the Trans Tasman Trophy at the age of 17. Four years later, Peake was involved in an assault on a man as part of a biker gang. The West Australian was then sentenced to five-year-old prison term for being part of the serious assault as a member of the Rebels Motorcycle Club in 2014. On Sunday, as the 31-year-old Australian golfer won the 104th New Zealand Open in Queenstown, the Western Australian also earned a spot in The Open Championship to be played at Royal Portrush later this year apart from pocketing a winning cheque of 302,000 New Zealand dollars and remembered the tough time.

“People make bad decisions, some worse than others, but it just goes to show that if you don’t actually give up on someone … you need to support them, and you just don’t know what is going to come from it. It’s life-changing ,” Peake told the ABC on Sunday after winning the New Zealand Open.

A young prodigy in Australian junior golf along with Smith, Peake became a member of the biker gang in his teens. It was in 2014 that the youngster along with other rebels members assaulted a man after the man had allegedly threatened the club members. “I dropped him,” Peake had told The West Australian in 2022. The incident resulted in a five-year sentence starting 2014 for the youngster, who had just turned professional. During the serving, Peake also won a golf competition at his former golf club Lakelands, where he had won four club championships as reported by Sydney Morning Herald. Post his sentence, Peake worked part-time in the mines before training under his former coach Ritchie Smith, whom he would write letters to during his time in prison. “[He] told me the story in this letter about what had happened and how he had put on 30 or 40 kilograms and then dropped the weight. He had started coaching golf. He realised he had let down a whole lot of people. In my business you are coaching kids and all of a sudden they lose interest and they just disappear, and he just disappeared.” Smith recalled while speaking with Sydney Morning Herald.

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Peake had earned the full card on the Australasian Tour for the first time in last year and had been playing on the tour since then. The golfer had also talked about comparing golf to his prison days with the kind of discipline one needs to be on the golf course and practice. “It’s kind of like a bad day on the golf course. If things aren’t going right, you have to finish your round, and it is the same as jail. You have to finish it as much as you do or don’t like it. It’s there, and you can’t just go home,” Peake had told the Tee It Up golf podcast in 2023.

The Australian golfer was also unclear about travelling to New Zealand with a delay in his visa due to his criminal record and him needing a travel clearance from immigration officials. Peake arrived in New Zealand on Tuesday and won the title with a one-shot win over Australian Jack Thompson, South African Ian Snyman and Japan’s Kazuki Higi. Peake sank an eight-foot par putt on the last hole to avoid a play-off against the three golfers and won the title with an overall score of 23-under.

“I always knew I could do it, it was just a matter of time when I was going to do it. This is what I do now. I want to be here and just play golf. The story is what it is, but I’m just out here playing golf. From this morning when I woke up four shots behind, to chase down a win. I’ve never been in a final group to now being a member of the Asian Tour,” Peake told the media after his win.