Meet the reformed biker and convict playing at the Open

Telegraph

2 days ago

In the few days Ryan Peake has already been in town, Royal Portrush has been everything that he expected. 'Tremendous, unbelievable,' the Australian said here on Sunday. 'It's every pro golfer's dream to play in the Open and make their debut at a venue like this. I guess, it's just that my journey has been different to the rest.'
Indeed, the particular route the 32-year-old has taken to this Dunluce Links course made headlines around the globe in March when he qualified by winning the New Zealand Open.
'After five years in prison, ex-gang member qualifies for British major' was the gist of them and so Peake suddenly became big news.
'I knew I would [be big news] because this won't ever happen again, will it?' he said. 'A bikie who did time, playing in an Open… It's a one-off and I expect attention. That's no problem. But it would be great to be known for my golf.'
If that is a big ask – and considering he was convicted for at least two counts of GBH, it certainly is at least that – then Cam Smith, the former world No 1 who won this championship three years ago, believes his long-time friend has the talent and the wherewithal.
When Peake was a teenager he was rated as the nation's prodigy alongside Smith and the pair duly played in the same Australian junior teams. They also roomed together on those trips.
'He was definitely always one of the best juniors,' Smith said last week. 'He obviously just got involved in some stuff that he probably wishes he hadn't. But he was always one of the best and had one of the best mentalities on the course. He was a really aggressive player, but if it didn't work out, nothing really bothered him. It's good to see him where he should be.'
A decade ago the Perth man was somewhere as far away from dreamland as can be imagined. He was serving time in Hakea Prison, an institution that one review criticised thus: 'The cells are small, unhygienic, and overcrowded, with reports of pest infestations and inadequate sanitation.'
Another labelled the maximum security jail in Perth as 'cruel and humiliating'. 'Hakea' was named after a local genus of beautiful flora, but inmates say the only thing they saw bloom was inhumanity. The prison has specialist management units known as 'punishment units', which have been described by the state regulator as 'outdated and not fit for purpose' because of the intense psychological damage inflicted as well as the inability of guards to monitor.
Peake was ashamed and would not allow his mother to visit, but his father, Mel, a bricklayer turned greenkeeper, insisted. Fortunately Peake had friendly company, as there were also members of the Rebels inside, the infamous outlaw motorcycle club he officially joined when he was 21 and already a struggling pro.
Peake's mental health was a mess and there had been addictions. The mini-Tours can be a desperately lonely climb and fraternity often exists only for the successful who can skip along together to the big show.
'My life had fallen into depression, I lost all self-esteem, I didn't know who I was, lost all direction in my life,' Peake told Golf Digest recently, in an extraordinary profile. 'Where I was at that stage in my life, it [the Rebels membership] was the only thing that brought me comfort. I felt like I belonged.'
There are rules and conditions in every club and although Peake has returned to the environs where they are can be wonderfully petty, gloriously irrelevant and hard to comprehend, in the Rebels they could be deadly serious. 'What happened … I can't say it was just one night, one mistake,' Peake said. 'It was years of build-up.'
Golf Digest expands on one night where, seemingly in self-defence, Peake assaulted a member of a rival gang who was preparing to attack. But another report detailed Peake being part of a six-man group laying into a defenceless individual. The fact is the crimes had built up and the half-decade prison sentence had to be fulfilled.
Sport, like gangs, remember their own and through his stretch, he received messages from peers. Yet when Ritchie Smith, his former coach who has guided Minjee Lee to major glory and her brother, Min Woo, to PGA Tour success, informed him that golf was still his path back to the straight and narrow and not an electrician apprenticeship, Peake blessedly took heed.
He was released in 2019, when Portrush last hosted the Open and so much of his life seems circular it could be scripted. However, the lead character himself, does not wish to be a role model or a 'celebrity' who has achieved their fame the wrong way. He does not want to forget his past and cannot begin to, and he knows that with a DP World Tour membership secured for next year – courtesy of finishing second in the Australasian Tour Order of Merit – he will have visa issues.
But for now, with his British passport – 'don't ask me exactly where my dad comes from, because I can't remember, but it's somewhere in England,' he told me – there was no problem this time and he has his fantasy shot at the Claret Jug.
And as they tend to, the Aussies are wagoning around this affable left-hander, standing at 6ft 4in and covered in tattoos. On Sunday, Peake played with Lee, and Cam Smith is also ready to link up again with his old hombre for a practice round and a waltz down memory fairway.
'I can't wait to see him at Portrush,' Smith said. 'Growing up with him, I knew the good fella in him. He was always really nice to me, always really funny and a laugh to be around. Hopefully he plays well, and although I'm sure that him simply being there would be good enough, I know he'll want to play well. And Peaky can really play.'