NEWYou can now listen to Pakinomist articles!
Ryan Peake will tee up at Royal Portrush on Thursday and how he got this opportunity is unlike anyone else in the field.
That’s because the Australian golfer won the New Zealand Open five years after he spent six months in prison.
Peake was a talented junior golfer who became a professional when he was 19 years old. But according to the BBC, Peake was “burnt out” from the game and joined the rebels, a forbidden motorcycle gang, two years after turning pro.
CLICK HERE for more sports cover at Foxnews.com
Ryan Peake from Australia celebrates with New Zealand Open Trophy after winning the 2025 New Zealand Open at Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
“I was just normalized to it,” Peake said, now 31, of joining the Biker band. “It wasn’t abnormal from which I was from hanging out in that kind of scene with my friends.
“It was something I found love in and I enjoyed it. I was interested in it and I just found something there that I felt I had not found anywhere else.”
Wyndham Clark admits he ‘made a mistake,’ expresses regret over us open closet space tirade
Peake was a “bikie,” but being part of a forbidden lifestyle means the risk of earning time in prison, which is what happened after assaulting someone he said was “to create threats to us.”
“We just went to tackle it, and frankly it wasn’t meant to happen like that,” explained Peake, pr. BBC. “We generally just went there for a chat and he would probably get a few strokes along the way and it was left on it.”
Peake landed in a maximum security correction facility and that was where he decided he “would achieve better things.”
Former open championship winner Ian Baker-Finch congratulates Ryan Peake from Australia after winning the 2025 New Zealand Open qualified him for the next open championship at Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
“I didn’t make a bikie,” Peak said. “I enjoyed the lifestyle while I lived it, but it wouldn’t get me ahead of life, and I just would always fall further and further behind and probably lead to more prison.”
Peake was a teammate of the 2022 champion golfer of the year Cameron Smith at the time he was convicted.
But he returned to golf after prison, and the left side began to get his career back on track. Thanks to the help of coach Richie Smith as well as support from her family, Peake received his Australasian tour card this season and won his first professional victory at the New Zealand Open.
In turn, Peake earned himself somewhere in this year’s open championship.
Ryan Peake from Australia celebrates after winning the 2025 New Zealand Open at Millbrook Resort on March 2, 2025 in Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
He will go with Phil Mickelson and Daniel van Tonder at. 02:19 A Thursday to begin his tournament.
