The convicted ex-bike gang member playing at The Open

Media opportunities with golfers do not generally cover gangs and prisons, but Ryan Peake’s path to his major championship debut has been anything but normal.

In fact, when Royal Portrush last staged The Open in 2019, Peake had just completed a five-year sentence for serious assault at Hakea Prison in Western Australia.

A talented junior golfer who turned professional aged 19, a “burnt out” Peake drifted away from the game and joined the Rebels, an outlawed motorcycle gang, when he was 21.

How does a promising young golfer from Perth become a “bikie”?

“I was just normalised to it,” said the 31-year-old, who won the New Zealand Open to qualify for The Open at Royal Portrush.

“It wasn’t abnormal from where I was from to hang out in that sort of scene with my friends.

For Peake – who began playing golf aged 10 – being a “bikie” was like having a “hobby that you live and breathe as well”.

However, aligning himself with that lifestyle ultimately landed him in jail for his part in assaulting a rival gang member who, in his words, was making “threats towards us”.

“We just went to deal with it, and honestly, it wasn’t meant to happen like that,” Peake recalled.

“We were generally just going there for a chat and he was probably going to get a couple of punches along the way and it was left at that.

“It just happened to be that the threats he threatened us with were true. He was armed and it escalated from there.”

Having played in the same Australian junior golf teams as future Open champion Cameron Smith, adjusting to “appalling conditions” in a maximum security correctional facility represented a dramatic downfall.

But while inside, he began the process of rehabilitation.

“I wanted to achieve better things in my life as far as I was never going to profit from being a bikie, and I didn’t profit from being a bikie,” said Peake.

“I enjoyed the lifestyle while I was living it, but it wasn’t going to get me ahead in life, and I was just always going to fall further and further behind and probably lead to more jail.

“But I’ve had great support networks that have always helped me. And this time I took the advice that they were giving me and followed the path they were trying to pave for me.”

‘They’ include Ritchie Smith, the experienced Australian coach who contacted Peake while he was in prison.

Smith, whose students Min Woo Lee and Elvis Smylie are also competing in Northern Ireland this week, believed there was a way back to golf for Peake.

“I obviously didn’t believe it at the start, but like he says, he did,” explained the heavily tattooed left-hander.

“And, you know, like I said before as well, he coaches major winners. He coaches the world’s best. He’s not going to dedicate his time in something that he doesn’t believe in himself, so that’s what got me believing it would happen.

Having regained pro status in 2022, the most significant moment of Peake’s career arrived in Queenstown in early March, where he holed an eight-foot par putt on the last to win the New Zealand Open by a shot.

His story has naturally attracted interest, and while Peake could have chosen not to discuss his past, he says he “just likes honesty”.

“It’s me. I guess I got out of the [motorcycle] club from being honest as well,” he added. “It’s hard to kick someone that’s honest, yeah?

“And it’s just my view and it’s my life, it’s my story. I’m not essentially embarrassed about it. It’s something that I’ve done. I’ve owned it.”

Peake’s British passport – his father was born in England – helped with his entry to the United Kingdom, where he finds himself competing for golf’s oldest championship.

He will play the first two rounds alongside six-time major winner Phil Mickelson – teeing off at 07:19 BST in round one on Thursday – and has already secured DP World Tour membership for 2026 after finishing second on the Australasian Tour Order of Merit.

It is all a far cry from his incarceration, but Peake doesn’t seem overly interested in soaking up adulation for turning his life around.

“I’m not trying to be a role model, be someone’s superhero, anything like that,” he said.

“I’m just basically living the best life I can, and whatever people see from that, that’s what they see.”

Now that he is here, what does he expect from himself this week?

“Obviously, I want to make the cut. My expectations are basically I just want to be able to get on that first tee and feel myself and just play my golf,” he said.

“Feel comfortable, just play my game and be within myself and the result will be what it will be. I don’t want to get caught up in anything, I just want to play my golf, I just want to be free.